


Fallout: Moscow Nights

by Professor_Beardface



Category: Fallout - Fandom
Genre: Adventure, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate History, Angst, Dark Comedy, Fictional Religion & Theology, Gen, Post Nuclear War, Survival, Swearing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-05
Updated: 2013-05-16
Packaged: 2017-12-10 10:35:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 27,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/785071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Professor_Beardface/pseuds/Professor_Beardface
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Whereas all Fallout games to date have taken place in North America, this fic explores what happened to the post-apocalyptic Europe and Eurasia. We follow Corporal Luka Jasienski as he flees the mistakes of his past. His journey brings him to Great Rus', where he and his companions journey through a bizarre world, stuck in the broken, dystopian heritage of the pre-war Soviet Era, mirroring the more typical "American 50's vibes" that we've seen in the games.</p>
<p>It's a slightly different take on the Fallout Universe that we all know and love, but at the core, it is still the same. So come along on an adventure in the wild, wild wastelands, that no sane man would ever undertake - for in the Tsardoms of Great Rus', there is no room for sanity!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Messy Goodbyes

**Prologue**

_Only a modest table and a plastic folding chair stood underneath the slow-spinning ceiling fan, which did little to cool the air or defy the uncomfortable heat rising from the floor. The room was cramped and unlit, but despite its uninviting state, it was perhaps the most frequently used in the Complex._

_The door to the room creaked open, and the silhouette of a scrawny, haggard figure plodded inside. He held an old tape recorder and two yellow sheaths of paper, which he folded under his left arm as he turned to carefully close the door behind him. As he shut out the last of the dim light from the sulphur lamps in the Observation Room, he allowed himself a content sigh._

_This tiny little space was more than it seemed, for it was the capital of his kingdom; neither the dank air nor the sultry atmosphere bothered him, and the thick darkness pressing down upon him had never been a problem either, for that matter. It was in this room that he had become The Narrator. It was his home, and it was also his life._

_The Narrator stepped over to the lone chair and sat down, placing both papers and recorder on the table while he droned along in the soft humming reaching up from the custom-built generators belowground. The humming had become much like a familiar tune to him, that he repeated whenever he was labouring away. He slid the papers back and forth over the table for a moment before he took them in his hands once more, skimming through the text scribbled upon them in glaring defiance of the darkness. He finally nodded to himself, and stopped his humming. Instead he turned to the tape recorder, and with a sharp jab of his index finger, he pressed ‘Record’._

_“War,” he said. “War never changes.” He gripped the papers firmly, and the green glow from his decaying hands provided just enough luminance for him to read the scribbling out aloud without much difficulty. He continued in a slow, gravelly voice: “Whether caused by greed, hate, ignorance, or the erratic whims of an insane despot, war has always been the embodiment of mankind’s worst qualities.”_

_The Narrator took a deep breath. “When the nuclear bombs finally fell, the Resource Wars had already brought much of the world to its knees. Europe had spent the past 17 years tearing itself apart through riots and infighting; and likewise, the Soviet Union was slowly going the same way, unable to keep up with the arms race between China and the United States.  
_

_While there were those who survived the nuclear apocalypse even in the old world, most of the groups and communities that arose from the ruins have not progressed much in the two centuries that have since passed. Every day is still a struggle for the few humans making their way in a world filled with feral ghouls, radioactive waste, and mutated monstrosities.”_

_Having reached the bottom of the paper, the Narrator tucked it away on the table without the slightest sound that might disturb the recording, nor did he ever take his eyes off the second page as his hand moved with a machinelike precision. “The situation is somewhat different out in Rus’ to the east, where a few growing settlements are slowly starting to reclaim the wastes. But when the immediate threat no longer comes from the hostile environment, humans are once again finding reasons to bicker amongst themselves.” The Narrator reached the final sentence on the page, reading it with the ominous premonition of someone who has repeated a line a thousand times. “Because war, war never changes...”_

_Content with his work, the Narrator reached out to press ‘Stop’ on the recorder. He grumbled to himself as soon as the whirring from the tape reel ended, and muttered in a more sarcastic tone of voice: “…especially when drunk Russians and AK47’s are involved.”_

***********************************        

**  
**

**Chapter 1 – Messy Goodbyes**

It seemed a day like any other in the great expanse of the Kyivan Wastelands, but only in the sense that no two days out here were ever truly alike. The barren land stretched on in all directions, though a derelict city still loomed amongst the dunes of frozen sand and dirt, standing as an uninviting obstruction in the weather-beaten lines of asphalt that had yet to be completely swallowed by the wastes.

A few square blocks of grey concrete still towered up from the metropolis, having once been habitats for its pre-war populace. Most of these buildings’ rooftops flaunted paling billboards, depicting images along a repeated theme of good and industrious workers in four-color print, reminiscing of a time when every stranger was still a Comrade that you just hadn’t met before. But the stirring message that these images were meant to convey had long since been lost on the wastelanders that still travelled through these parts, and more so than usual on the lone figure trudging along Highway M06, on a direct course towards the urban ruins.                                                                  

The figure was carrying a worn hunting rifle over his back, and the lack of a caravan following behind him might have been cause for alarm, had he actually looked the part of a raider. Aside from the fact that he was also carrying a heavy backpack, which would slow any self-respecting bandit down once they took chase after their victims, there was just something off about the way he was dressed. From the thick boots and denims stained with so much dirt and dust that their original colours could no longer be discerned, to the thermostatic military jacket with a bleached camouflage pattern, the figure came very close to blending in completely with the wastes around him, to the point where it seemed intentional.

No raider ever went through the trouble to dress like that. Not even the Chaplains of the Tsar did. The only similarities the figure had with the latter was that his jacket was adorned with an emblem over the left side of his chest. The roman numerals _VI_ had been carefully sewn into the textile, and they were enveloped in orange flames, with a white bolt of lightning shooting out from underneath them. Under the emblem, the jacket also carried a nameplate reading: _Cpl. Luka Jasienski_. It wasn’t written in Cyrillic, but rather in the foreign alphabet used out west.

To Luka, however, the big letters on the road signs and posters around here were equally unfamiliar. They reminded him of the crude writing becoming of a child; random letters of the alphabet either drawn poorly or mirrored to how they were actually supposed to be, mixed up with a few numbers and pointless doodles for good measure.

Luka sighed and shot a wary glance down along the highway behind him, before he turned to quickly scan the outskirts of the city one more time. He wasn’t sure if it would be safe to enter or not, but his feet ached badly and he needed shelter before he could even start to think about sitting down to rest.

Detecting no signs of life, he finally broke off from the highway and went onto a smaller road that lead him into the city. As he set foot amongst the ruins, the streets proved to be mostly empty, save for a couple of rusted cars that had likely been abandoned by their owners even before the war. Luka made sure to step carefully once he passed a broken store window, well aware that the slightest sound from any glass shard he accidentally trampled on could give away his location to anyone – or anything – that might have chosen to take up residence inside the dark building.

Luka continued his journey much in the same way, sticking to the main road while making as little noise as possible as he ventured deeper into the city. Normally he would have stayed on smaller, more crooked streets with corners to dart around, but he was fervently looking for something with which to orientate himself. And just as he had hoped, he eventually found another office like the one in the city he had passed three days ago. The familiar logo above the entrance was that of a trident circling a globe, and the billboard in the glass window was even written in letters that he could understand. In an attempt to put less strain on his eyes, Luka wiped away what dirt that hadn’t frozen to the window, before he began to read: _‘Poseidon Energy – With the workers of Zhytomyr, towards the New Society.’_

So he had a name for the city, although that wasn’t what he had been looking for. He proceeded to glance over the smaller print underneath, swiftly moving past the usual buzzwords like ‘collective’ and ‘anti-imperialist’ until he found the part that he was looking for: _‘You may also inquire with the utility robot at our work desk for additional information.’_ That was actually better than last time, when he had been forced to make do with some dusty old leaflets and a computer that he never managed to guess the password for.

Luka stepped away from the window, but nearly yelped as he saw a reflection in it. The figure that stared back at him looked rugged, with facial hair that had grown to that awkward point where it’s neither really stubble, nor a beard. The figure had unkempt, chestnut-coloured hair, and his dark brown eyes reflected poorly in the dirty glass, making them look almost like hollow, black holes. It took Luka a few moments to realize that the reflection was his own. The scare made him look in both directions down the street before he turned towards the entrance to the building, but as he tried the door, it was locked.

“Of course…” he muttered to himself, and looked around one more time while considering his options. He wished he still had his lockpicks, but they were one of the many items he had lost on his way out here. Luka swiftly reached for his rifle instead, and took aim at the lock, but a thought stopped him from pulling the trigger. While a well-placed shot would certainly give him one less locking device to worry about, it would not only make a lot of noise, but also cost him one of the precious few piercing rounds he had left. Perhaps he could draw his Beretta instead, he wasn’t planning on getting into close enough quarters with anyone to actually have to use it anyway, but even so it still felt foolish to waste the bullet. 

Instead, Luka turned back to the large window. If he had to make a racket, at least he wasn’t going to let his forced entry echo across the entire city. He reached into his backpack and took out his blanket, which he swiftly wrapped around the butt of his rifle. He closed his eyes and turned his head away, before slamming the rifle against the glass. The window made a muffled crack, and with a second and third bash it collapsed in a rain of debris falling to the ground.

The shattering sound it made was still quite loud, and Luka stood frozen in place for a long time to just listen for anything else; any response from the city itself. But he couldn’t hear any unwelcome wails or snarls, so if this place held any ghouls, he had been lucky enough not to stir them in their slumber.

Finally, his nerves settled to the point where he could slowly proceed to brush off the shards of glass that had gotten stuck in the blanket, to then put it back in his pack. Afterwards, he finally stepped through the wrecked window and gave the billboard a slight nudge, finding it moved easily. He pushed it aside just enough to step into the office behind it, before putting it back in place in the hope that just the shattered window alone would not be enough to prompt further investigation by anyone passing by outside.

As Luka turned back into the office he was faced with a near-engulfing blackness, and although the place had evidently been locked down and untouched before his arrival, he still caught himself holding his breath. For a moment he tried to recall if he had misplaced his flashlight as well, but he dropped the thought once his eyes settled on a faint, blinking light in the far end of the room.

Having gradually grown accustomed to the dim setting, Luka made his way forward across the floor, finding the source of light to stem from the side of a bulky, metallic object sitting behind a desk. Despite the darkness, he could make out a massive, round body, with a plethora of arm-like extensions shooting out from it on all sides. Presuming it to be the utility robot, Luka tapped it lightly with the side of his rifle; an action that seemed to instantly wake the thing from its rest, as the many lights on its body flared up and nearly blinded him. 

“Dobryi dyen, tovarisch!” the robot proclaimed in a blaring, metallic voice. It shot up from the floor to hoover mid-air, in apparent defiance of the laws of gravity.

Luka blinked, and took a step back. He had known for all his life that when confusion struck, the safest thing was usually to run, but he stopped and placed his hands to the side to his head as another thought entered his mind. “No! You’ve GOT to be kidding me!” he exclaimed in resignation. “Just my luck… hey robot, is your voicebox broken, or is that actually how people talk out here?”

The robot clattered and hummed in a way that Luka found somewhat foreboding – especially since he realized, the thing looked oddly battered even through the poor lighting of the room.

“My sincerest apologies, Comrade!” the floating scrap heap finally chirped back, reassuring Luka that it was at least not about to blow up in his face. “Few outside of the honoured proletariat ever comes here, and I am programmed to greet visitors in their native tongue. I have now adjusted my speech patterns for your convenience!”

Luka scratched his chin thoughtfully. “Well… that’s… kind of you. I take it you are able to answer a few questions then?”

“Certainly, Comrade! My name is Gilroy the 15th, and I am programmed to answer any queries about Poseidon Energy and our local branch – provided I am not asked to divulge corporate secrets!”

“Good, and there will be no need for corporate-“ Luka paused, as his mind zoned in on one little detail that he just couldn’t leave be. “Wait, did you just say Gilroy… the fifteenth?”

“Indeed! An astute observation, though I would expect nothing less from one of the Motherland’s ardent workers! Regrettably, the fourteen Gilroys before me had to be taken out of commission after meeting their demise in occasional misunderstandings with our local Comrades.”

“Hmm, those must have been some violent ‘misunderstandings’…”

“Yes of course, but misunderstandings nonetheless. The proletariat felt rightly threatened by the prospect that their jobs might be overtaken by robots like myself, and this lead to several industrial riots. Unfortunately, not all of our Comrades knew that Poseidon Energy supports their fight against the capitalist swine, and this may have lead to some collateral damage in the form of my predecessors. Finally with me, however, an understanding was reached with the working public, to the great benefit of all!”

Luka squinted to get a better look at the robot, and aside from several dents in its surface he could also make out an excessive amount of words scribbled all over its body. Some of them he recognized as profanities in his own language, but most words were written in the strange, child-writing that he couldn’t make sense of. The crowning achievement of this impressive feat of art, however, were the lines that so elegantly managed to make Gilroy’s optic lens appear as the dark opening right in the middle of someone’s buttocks.

“Right… just what kind of understanding was reached?” Luka asked sceptically.

“Oh! Well since the hired security guards were unable to contain the vigilantes that would enter our office, Poseidon Energy decided that guarding our local branch was a task far too dangerous for humans to undertake. For their own safety, our staff was replaced with a half-dozen Protectrons armed with Gatling lasers. They have kept the peace since!”

Luka looked around nervously, but he couldn’t see any of these other robots and assumed they were in another room. He thought to himself that it was probably nothing to brood over, since as clearly shown by the evidence hovering before him, their presence had not stopped the pre-war locals from still taking the occasional shot at poor Gilroy. But just to be safe, Luka asked: “When you say ‘keep the peace’… do you mean the Protectrons shot anyone that tried to abuse you?”

Gilroy let out a loud bleep that somehow sounded vaguely like a gasp. “By Comrade Stalin’s moustache! Surely this slander has been planted in your mind by the fascist dissidents over at Svarog Solar; as a patriotic worker you would do well to hand over the names of these perverted charlatans to your nearest police officer, so they can be sent off to the Gulags where they belong! Rest assured that the occasional death we have seen in here has been nothing more than tragic mishaps!”

“Occasional deaths?” Luka asked hesitantly. “…mishaps?”

“Oh yes, such a horrid thing really!” Gilroy wailed. “There was the very sad episode with the seven drunk workers who accidentally locked themselves into our old janitor’s closet and starved to death, not to mention the confused man who lacerated his throat on our electric ceiling fan and bled out… oh and of course the two helpful souls who wanted to make improvements to my recharge station, only to accidentally cause one of its energy cells to explode and blow their heads off. Then there was the incident with the falling anvil that-“

“Yes, yes… okay, I get it.” Luka rubbed his temples, starting to feel that he had wasted far too much time on this conversation. He made a mental note to try and suppress his inquisitive nature in the future, pretending for convenience sake to have no recollection of making this exact same vow repeatedly in the past.

“I am overjoyed that you have got whatever ‘it’ may be, Comrade.” Gilroy buzzed back. “If my services are no longer needed I shall switch back into Energy Conservation Mode.”

“Wait! Stop! Not yet!” Luka called out. “I have one more question for you.”

“Of course, Comrade. What can I do for you?”

“Well, see…” Luka rubbed the side of his neck and wondered just how to express his request. “I can’t really read or understand the language used around here. I also don’t know the land… So do you have any English-to-Gibberish dictionaries? Or glossaries, or maps? Or anything like that which I could look through?”

“Oh! I am terribly sorry to disappoint an upright worker such as yourself, but we are not equipped with any materials of the sort… perhaps, however, I can interest you in one of the information booklets we do have? For one, we have a truly inspiring account of how Poseidon Energy expanded into Zhytomyr with the philanthropic desire to save this glorious city from the clutches of the European weasels at Svarog Solar. It is a delightful read, I assure you!”

“No thanks…” Luka sighed in response. “How about this… would you be able to give me directions to the nearest library instead?”

“It would be my sincerest pleasure, Comrade!” Gilroy chirped as happily as a robot with pre-programmed speech patterns could. “But you are certain then that you do not wish to partake in Poseidon’s rousing propaganda?

“I uhh… already did.” Luka said to speed things along. It was kind of true after all, since he _had_ gone through some of Poseidon’s brochures before, but simply discarded them as rubbish. “Now… there is a library then. Where?”

“It’s out in Victory Square, Comrade, with a big sign over the entrance. You can’t miss it!”

“Thank you. And judging by the name, I guess this ‘Victory Square’ is more or less at the centre of the city?”

“Quite right! You will know you’re in the right place when you see Zhytomyr’s glorious tank monument! Just continue down the main street and you will see it; it’s not far from here!”

“Good…” Luka was about to turn away when another thought struck him. “And by the way, Gilroy… if someone else comes in here and asks about me, would you be able to lie and say you never received any visitors today?”

The robot hovered silently in the air for a moment, and Luka was very close to repeating the question when Gilroy finally answered. “Error. This request does not conform with my programming.”

“What?!? But you had no problem at all when-“ Luka quickly bit down on his tongue to shut himself up. As flustered as he was, he still had the presence of mind to realize that Gilroy might not take kindly to having accusations about Poseidon’s sincerity thrown around, and likewise, it was painfully obvious that just because the laser-wielding Protectrons were out of sight, they shouldn’t be out of mind.

Luka breathed out between his gritted teeth and felt increasingly conflicted about the situation; leaving the robot behind with knowledge of where he was headed next would be almost as risky as testing his luck with the defences in this place, and while he briefly considered the prospect of just smashing Gilroy to pieces and making a run for it, that obviously hadn’t turned out too well for the people who had tried it before.

The robot patiently kept hovering behind its desk, apparently waiting for Luka to finish his sentence or say something else. This, of course, only helped to heighten the anxiety he felt, as he was half expecting the robot to finally ask what he had been about to say. _‘Damn it…’_ he thought to himself. _‘Either way I go with this I’m still fucked!’_

Luka continued to stare at Gilroy and once again noted the drawing around the robot’s optic lens, thinking the ‘asshole’ look really suited the stupid scrapheap right now. “Gilroy… please. I will be in danger if you reveal where I’m headed.” he finally pleaded.

“I am sorry, Comrade. I am not allowed to interfere with the doings of the general public, but only matters concerning Poseidon Energy. If you are in danger, you should contact the appropriate authorities to see to your safety.”

“But there’s no one else who can help me! Only you can!”

 _‘Wait…’_ Luka tensed up as his own words slowly sunk in. _‘Only Gilroy can help me… so maybe he just needs the right incentive…’_

“Please elaborate on your claim, Comrade,” the robot requested.

“Yes, uhh… gladly!” Luka blinked rapidly as he repeated their conversation so far in his mind to pick out the pieces he needed. “The person that might come ask for me… he is a spy for the… Solar people, that you were talking about!”

“What?!?” Gilroy spat out. “My dear Comrade, thank you for your straightforwardness in this matter; I shall initiate Guard Protocol Delta right away!”

“Yes… best get those Protectrons ready.” Luka answered dryly, while he listened to the clambering that had just started coming from the other room. He could hear robotic voices and loud clumping sounds that seemed to be nearing a door at Gilroy’s side. “…and that’s my cue to leave. Thanks again!”

“Thank you likewise, Comrade! Our mutual exchange has been most rewarding, but now please vacate the premises for your own safety; our Protectrons are about to undertake their voluntary obligation to combat the local insurgents.” The robot played an audio file of a short drumroll followed by a fanfare. “For Mother Russia!”

Luka didn’t hear the fanfare; he was already outside the building, silently running further into the city. The urban landscape remained lifeless and unmoving around him as he pushed on, and just as Gilroy had said, the Victory Square soon came into view at the end of the street, with its distinct tank monument in the centre.

Most of the buildings surrounding the square looked worse for wear; some had their windows and doors broken down, while yet others had collapsed to the point where only parts of the exterior walls still stood upright. It wasn’t what Luka had hoped for, but before his stomach had time to twist into a knot, he spotted the grey block of a building that not only looked relatively intact, but also had a number of large letters firmly attached above its entrance. The copper from which the letters had been shaped was green with corrosion, but the word they spelled out was still readable: _Бібліотека._

Despite being written in the awful, local scribbles, Luka thought it looked very similar to the word _biblioteka_ , which he recalled was sometimes printed on signs, or over the archways to the old world libraries back home. It was a good enough reason, in any case, to start exploring that building before any of the others, so Luka trudged up to the glass door and gave it a curious look. Someone had used spray paint to mark it with a strange, red symbol, like the letter _T_ , but with a small plus sign right above it, and a short, horizontally skewed line cutting through the symbol almost at the bottom. Luka had no idea what it denoted, but shrugged and muttered to himself: “I swear, they’re making additional letters up just to fuck with outsiders…”

He gave the door a tug; no lock this time. Instead, it slowly opened, and a waft of air struck against him from inside. It carried with it a thick, pungent smell that Luka tried to place while he searched for his flashlight, but the latter took precedence in his mind as he could not seem to find it, no matter how many times he went through his backpack. He finally sighed, and stepped into the building anyway. The light seeping in through the windows wasn’t much, but it would be enough to at least navigate the place; whatever books he found could be taken away, and read elsewhere.

The interior seemed to be just one, massive room, with slender pillars holding up the roof. There were tables and chairs strewn in an unorganized fashion along the lengths of the walls, and a reception desk with the blackened shell of a computer stood just by the entrance. Towards the centre of the room were lines of untold wooden shelves, standing together in clusters with a pathway down the middle. It looked indisputably promising, but as Luka got closer he frowned. The first shelf he checked was empty, save for two empty binders and a small glass jar. Luka was about to move on to the next shelf, when he noticed a faint glow coming from the bottom of the container.

The glass made a soft rasping sound against the shelf as Luka pulled it down, and when he saw the source of the light inside he felt a bitter, ashen taste in his mouth. Inside, at the bottom, were the moth-like, fluffy bodies of three dead rad-pixies; their broad, elegant wings still radiating a weak glow. Makeshift lamps with rad-pixies inside were commonplace, but the lid to this jar lacked air holes.

Luka quivered slightly, well aware that he was more upset than he reasonably should be. But he really liked these insects, not only because they were one of the few creatures in the wastelands that didn’t try to kill humans, but also because he had always considered them to bring good luck. He wasn’t so sure that _dead_ rad-pixies would speak to his favour though, so he finally sighed and placed the jar back in the shelf.

Looking around, the other shelves seemed equally picked clean, but despite it, Luka continued down the centre pathway. He wasn’t sure exactly how many books there might be in an average library, but he definitely knew that there would be far too many for all of them to just magically disappear. No, he wasn’t going to be so easily discouraged; they had to be in here somewhere.

The lines of shelves that he passed all stood gapingly empty, but Luka did notice something new as he made his way deeper into the building; with each step he took, the air grew thicker and thicker around him, until he felt a stinging pain in his nostrils. The smell had started to remind him of the time he accidentally burnt a box of Cram that he was supposed to heat up, and as soon as the thought struck him, he immediately grew uneasy and quickened his pace.

He passed by a few more lines of shelves, checking them more out of stubbornness than anything else, but froze up as soon as he could make out the very last couple of lines; they were blackened, and at the back end the last few shelves had even collapsed. Luka swore loudly and hurried down to survey the damage; at the end of the room, piles of ash were strewn everywhere. What little could be made out of the floor seemed to have cracked, and the roof and walls were visibly scorched.

Luka desperately tried to sort the information through his mind so it would make sense. Someone had been in here, systematically picked out every single book, and then burnt them all in a massive, indoor pyre… but why? It clearly wasn’t for warmth; the amount of fuel used was just too excessive, not to mention that the smoke would have killed anyone who had stayed in the building while the books burned.

Was the red symbol by the entrance related somehow? It was the best conclusion Luka could draw; while they were uncommon out his way, he had heard about raiders and chem-junkies who were so far gone that they resorted to meaningless violence and destruction, for no other reason than their own recreational pleasure. He guessed it made sense that some gang might have come through the city and left their mark behind at the scene of destruction, but it didn’t matter now… The ashes were cold, and the lingering smell was more ingrown in the walls than anything else; whoever had done this were most likely far gone. 

_‘But then again…’_

Luka hurried back to the entrance and the first line of shelves, and gave the jar with rad-pixies another look. The glow from the insects’ wings was as weak as one would expect if the creatures had been dead for at least two days, but a rising suspicion made Luka unscrew the lid of the jar. As soon as oxygen poured into the container, the luminescence from the insects grew stronger. Much stronger, in fact, as if the pixies had died only hours ago.

“Great. Just… marvellous…” The luminescent reaction was fuelled more or less exclusively by oxygen; the pixies could have been in the jar for a week, or less than a day. There was no way to tell, because even if the scorched ashes in the back of the library were old, someone else could have entered the building since.

This was bad news, because with or without books, Luka would still need a secure place to spend the night… and as far as he was concerned, he had learned that the library was unsafe. Even if the chance of someone else entering was minimal, there was only really one way to survive in the wasteland, and that way was never to take unnecessary risks. However small they might be, sooner or later something bad _would_ happen.

He had seen it happen to others, and heard plenty of stories. Out in the post-apocalyptic wasteland, death was always looming around every corner, and if Luka knew one thing, it was that he would never become one of those idiots that people told stories about; like the man who had decided to clear away a Nuka Cola truck that blocked the steep valley across the Augustów Expressway. He had done it with a controlled explosion, that attracted every single ghoul in the area.

But it weren’t the ghouls that killed him; the explosion also detonated the truck’s fuel tank, making the explosion just a little less controlled. Debris had supposedly flown everywhere, and the man had died from a bottle of Nuka Cola falling on his head, in his foxhole almost a hundred meters away from the detonation site.

As for the ghouls, they had enjoyed the radiation from the discharged automotive batteries, and chosen to stick around. And so it came to be that the Augustów Expressway was now impossible to journey through, for a completely different reason.

Luka sighed and broke out of his thoughts; lingering here because of his own laziness and reluctance to relocate would be particularly stupid in this instance, as he already counted the dead rad-pixies as a sign that remaining around the library would give him bad luck.

At least, he thought, if he hadn’t noticed the jar and chosen to stay as a result, nobody else would realize the stupidity of it, and hence, no one would have remembered him or cared to spread the story of his inadvertent demise. That should perhaps have been a consolation, but for some reason Luka just found it to be depressing him further. He huffed, and finally stepped out of the building.

Greeted by the last rays of the setting sun, the outdoors faced Luka with a new problem, however; not only did he still need a place to hole up for the night, but the library was the most intact building in the near vicinity. He could seek shelter amongst the rubble of the ruins, but since he never really was a fan of contracting frostbite, that meant he’d have to start a fire to keep himself warm when the temperature went back below freezing. That wouldn’t have been a problem if he had a companion to keep watch, but as it were…

Luka looked around the city square one more time, before his eyes finally settled on the cathedral on the other side of the tank monument. One of its towers had collapsed, but the rest of the structure was still standing. The windows were intact, and so high above the ground that they could not easily be climbed through, and the main entrance had a robust-looking door that Luka suspected he could barricade from the inside.

Going back to the Poseidon office with all the robots in combat mode seemed about as wise to Luka as sticking his head in a Karakurt Nest, but even though that meant the cathedral was the only remaining, realistic alternative, he hesitated. He knew that the Kyivan Wastelands were part of Great Rus’, and this meant that the Grand Chaplaincy might already have a presence in the building.

Luka had learned about them about two years ago, back in the summer of 2268, when the first Chaplain missionary had reached the Borderlands. Supposedly, she had settled down in Lipsk, one of the smaller settlements out there, and she had insisted on using the ruins of the local church. Apparently, the Chaplains would only take up residence on what they considered to be ‘holy ground’, or so Luka had heard, so if they had an outpost in Zhytomyr as well, it would no doubt be in the cathedral.

But finally, the yearning for a place to rest outweighed his fear of being sent back west, and Luka approached the grey building. He could always lie about who he was, and to that end he was in the process of thinking up a false identity as he wandered towards the main door. He was having a lot of fun coming up with what to say, but wondered if he should do something about the nameplate on his jacket. Since the people out here seemed to have their own, separate form of writing, he chose to leave it be, but as he stepped inside the cathedral he was a little disappointed to find that his cognitive effort had been in vain either way; the place was dark and abandoned.

Wasting no time, Luka hurried to search the cathedral for any unwelcome surprises before the sun disappeared on the horizon. The lighting was far worse than in the library, but he made do, and after making sure that he was alone in the building, he barricaded the door with one of the massive, wooden benches nearby. He then proceeded up to the second floor, setting out a thin fishing thread in the staircase, tied to enough junk hanging down the side of the stairs to make a racket if the thread was touched.

Content with his work, Luka entered the second, intact tower and sat down against the wall, covering himself in his blanket. The room was small, and he shivered slightly as he imagined the walls bending down over him, so he quickly turned his eyes to the floor. As much for distraction as for actual need, he picked out a pack of crackers from his backpack and ate it. Afterwards, he felt a little better, and brushed a few crumbs off his blanket before he wrapped himself a little tighter in it and finally lay down. He closed his eyes, and quickly drifted off in a dreamless sleep.

 

***********************************

 

Luka woke up as soon as the first sunlight of the new day entered through the window. He had laid down facing the east, so the light would instantly wash over his face, but now he winced at the stinging sensation in his eyes and wished he hadn’t done that.

He knew he had to get up, however, so he stretched for a bit, and cracked his spine back in place before he sat up and stared out into the room with a sullen glare. In the early daylight, the room seemed a lot bigger, which comforted Luka a little. He yawned, and reached for a handful of roasted coffee beans in his backpack. He counted eight of them, which he then put in his mouth.

The bitter taste helped wake him up a little more, and after chewing the beans carefully and swallowing them, he had already abandoned all thoughts of lying back down. Instead, he drank some water out of his plastic canteen, and then double-checked the area around him to make sure that everything was returned to his backpack. Lastly, he picked it up and swung its straps over his shoulders, and took the hunting rifle in his hands.

Before exiting the tower, Luka then looked out of each window in succession, to ensure that the area outside was empty and safe to travel. Through the window facing the west he saw the still-empty Victory Square, but he frowned as he gazed out of the windows to the south and east; down the smaller road behind the cathedral, about a dozen ghouls were skulking about.

Since Luka was headed east, out of the city, they were technically in the way, but he thought if he just travelled north first, then he could bypass them without a problem. The ghouls would have their sight blocked by a number of ruins, it looked like, but to be sure, Luka finally went to peer out of the window facing north.

“No… no no no!” Outside, on the road, he could see a group of three humans, and they definitely weren’t the sort he fancied running into. They looked like raiders, or at least it was obvious that they were up to no good. Looking them over, Luka decided it was probably a good rule of thumb to assume that if a group’s apparent leader is wearing cut-off halves of a rubber tire as shoulderguards, then you are probably looking at a group of bandits.

His two companions were a man and a woman, who Luka thought looked rather unpleasant in their own right. The man wore a leather jacket and carried what looked like a crowbar with an excessive amount of knives attached to the end with the help of about two or three rolls of duct tape. The woman had a machete hanging from each of her two hips, and was playing around with a revolver, using the front sight of it to scratch part of her shaved head.

Luka was trying to determine if he’d lose more time heading back west and going around the city, or by trying to sneak through the ruins to the east while moving slowly and carefully enough to stay out of the sight of both the humans and ghouls. But then a new realization dawned on him; the raiders were moving down the road, south, and would be walking straight into the throng of ghouls just within the next few minutes.

Feeling his head go empty, Luka backed away from the window and started running down the stairs. After a few steps, he began to wonder just what he should do. He _could_ just let the two groups fight each other, and use the clamour of battle to sneak past them by the northeast.

Luka leapt over the fishing thread, and scowled. On the other hand, considering the difference in numbers it was fairly likely that the humans would end up as ghoul-fodder, and he couldn’t just let them die because he disliked the way they looked. For all he knew, they were settlers, or prospectors down on their luck. And they were fellow humans; people he had sworn to protect.

Moving the bench away from the main door, Luka then stepped out on the stairs outside the Cathedral. He looked north, and saw a path he could take if he chose to just run… But then a strong memory washed over him like cold ice, chilling him down to the spine.

 _‘Luka! Where are you! LUKA!’_  

The ensuing shrieks echoed in his mind, but they no longer sounded human to him. In a way that made them all the more harrowing, however, and he stopped dead in his tracks, then spun around and started running south.

Darting out on the eastern road exiting the square, Luka kept himself hunched down so the ghouls at the crossroad ahead couldn’t see him over the car wreckage standing in the middle of the street. He snuck forward into the ruins to the south of the road, and moved through in the rubble.

With every step he took, Luka became all the more aware that he didn’t really have a plan. He was no longer backed up by his fireteam, which would have normally just swooped in and gunned down the ghouls after he had marked them out with a flare.

 _‘That’s right… a flare!’_ Luka swung the hunting rifle back over his shoulder, and reached into one of the side-pockets of his backpack. He took out the one flare he still had left, and then drew the 9mm Beretta from his leg-holster and swiftly screwed on its silencer.

He pushed himself against a wall standing from the ruins, and held his breath as he heard one of the ghouls gurgling and moving about, right on the other side of it. He would have to be clever, and quick, as he wouldn’t want to give his position away to either of the groups. He’d provide assistance to the humans, and then be gone before they had a chance to spot him, but he had to time this perfectly…

Very slowly, Luka exhaled, and as he did, he also twisted the top of the flare to ignite it. A few sparks struck out on the dry paper, and it burned with a bright flame as he quickly threw it over the top of the wall, out over the road to the north. He could hear the ghouls react to the crackling sounds from the torch, and he noticed from their pacing against the asphalt that they were drawn after it into the northern ruin.

Luka spun around the wall and fired his Beretta at the first ghoul he saw; it was a lone straggler from the group that had chosen to ignore the flare and was just about to look behind the wall and discover his hiding place. He stifled a panicked yelp as he hadn’t expected to stare one of the rotted creatures right in the eyes, but his shot went neatly through the ghoul’s head and sent it crashing limply to the ground.

The sudden fright made Luka miss with his second shot, as he fired at the back of one of the ghouls following the flare. His shot ricocheted off a piece of rock, but the sound was muffled by the snarling of the ghouls themselves, as well as a yell from one of the humans up the road who had apparently just heard their savage growls.

Hearing the human, a few of the ghouls scampered back out of the ruins, and Luka had to quickly jump behind a section of rubble to not be spotted. There were three ghouls in total out on the road, and Luka waited until two of them were around the corner to the north-west, running up towards the humans. Then, he finally peered up from his hiding spot and fired his gun at the third ghoul.

The shot hit the creature in the lower back; it spun around, and charged towards Luka, who tried to steady his arm best he could as he pressed the trigger two more times. He trembled and missed with the first shot, but the second went through an especially squishy section of the ghoul’s neck, cutting through the spine and leaving the head to flap haplessly over the creature’s left shoulder, attached only to enough flesh to not have it fall off completely.

Just as the ghoul fell to the ground, Luka heard a loud gunshot from the north. “That would be revolver-girl…” he muttered to himself, and hurried back behind the wall on his left. He had figured that two against three would be decent odds in the humans’ favour, but the loud noise sent another cluster of ghouls out of the ruin, and Luka could hear them dart along the road to join in the attack.

He peered through a crack in the ruins and counted four additions in total, as he heard a second shot followed by relative silence. He guessed that meant the group had finished off the two ghouls coming for them, so now it would be three on four. Still decent odds.

Not waiting for a third gunshot, Luka hurried further east, so he could fire at any additional ghouls exiting the ruins while hidden in a more advantageous position. He had learned how stupid ghouls could be, so if he sat facing them on just the opposite end of the road when they came running out, then that would be one thing, but if he sat to the east, and they heard sounds from the west, he hoped they would freeze up in a moment’s confusion and allow him enough time to gun them all down.

Two more ghouls came out of the ruins, and Luka felled one of them by unloading three shots before it had even gotten out on the road. The second ghoul nearly tripped over the first, but didn’t stand dazed as Luka had hoped. It jumped to its feet and rushed his position, jumping over its nearly-headless friend and some additional rubble without much effort.

Panicked, Luka squeezed the trigger. Then again, and again, and he felt a due sense of alarm weighing down on him as only one of the three bullets grazed the shoulder of the snarling monstrosity. It came closer, and Luka fired a fourth shot that hit the ghoul in the abdomen, without slowing it down much. Then he ran. 

Hearing the gurgling and hissing from the ghoul that was now almost literally breathing down his neck, Luka jumped through a collapsed section in the wall to the building before him, and ran to the main door. The ghoul had followed right behind him, and Luka got outside just in time to slam the door shut in the creature’s face. A squishy ‘splat’ was heard from the other side, and Luka felt the full force of the creature’s body crash against him.

The ghoul continued to throw itself at the door, and scratch and wail, but Luka held it shut and placed his Beretta against it. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, trying to feel exactly where the bashing and scraping struck the door on the other side. He directed his pistol accordingly, and then fired. The bullet went straight through the wood, and he could hear the ghoul snarl as the bullet went through it as well.

The bashing grew a little less intense, but continued, so Luka fired a second shot. The banging against the door finally stopped, but he could still hear the ghoul wheezing on the other end, so Luka finally opened the door, to find it thrashing about on the floor. He took aim one last time, and shot the beast through the head.

If he had correctly managed to keep track, that was the last shot in his clip, but he had no time to stand out in the road to reload, so he hurried into a ruined building on the opposite end of the road before any additional ghouls spotted him. If he had counted right when he was in the cathedral tower, there were only two or three more left anyway, presuming the humans had finished the four that came after them.

He listened for any noise out on the road; the fighting had died down for a moment, but now resumed as he presumed the humans were dealing with the final stragglers. Judging from the direction of the fighting, Luka passed through the empty building, jumped out a window in the back, and continued up the ruins to the north. A few minutes later, he found a ruin with two walls standing so the corner they formed faced him.

The humans were calling out now, clearly searching for whoever had helped them, but Luka ran in behind the walls and hunched down, peering around the corner to the south. From this point, even if they came closer, he could sneak away in several directions; there was no way they’d find him.

Luka expelled a sigh of relief, and proceeded to reload his Beretta with one of the two remaining clips, before removing the silencer and holstering the pistol again. He was so occupied with it, as well as with listening to the voices calling out, that he didn’t hear the approaching sounds behind him.

When he finally heard the distinct sound of someone cocking back the hammer on a gun, it was too late. Luka went stiff, and felt his heart pound a little harder when a familiar, deep voice called out: “Turn around, Luka. But reach for your gun, and I’ll blast your fucking head off.”

Before he had fully turned around, the man behind him had placed one of his large hands on Luka’s shoulder and yanked away his rifle. He watched how the man threw it aside, and held his hand out once more. “The Beretta as well,” he said, very matter-of-factly. 

Luka slowly handed it over, and the man cast the pistol aside just as he had done with the rifle. Even though Luka was crouched on the ground, it was clear from the way the man towered over him that he was considerably taller. He was bald, but with thick, black brows and beard.

The man wore similar clothes to Luka’s, and a nearly identical jacket. The same emblem adorned it over the left side of the man’s chest; the same roman numerals, _VI_ , enveloped in the same, orange flames, with the same, white bolt of lightning shooting out towards the nameplate below. The only difference was that this jacket was embroidered with a different name: _Sgt. Rudek Król._

“Clever thing you did back at the Poseidon office,” Rudek snarled. “Didn’t know you could reprogram robots, Jasienski. That’s something we would have liked to know about you a little sooner.” He shot Luka a murderous glare. “But I suppose, there were plenty of things you never told us about yourself… Isn’t that right?”

Luka held his hands up defensively. “Look, Rudek…” He swallowed hard as he noticed the man’s eyes narrow considerably. “It doesn’t have to end like this. Mistakes were made, I know, but isn’t it better to-“

“Don’t try to weasel out of this, you little shit!” Rudek spat out. “I haven’t tracked you for weeks just to argue. Be a proper man, at least this once in your life, and accept what’s coming to you.”

Watching Rudek’s flaring nostrils was almost hypnotizing, and Luka began to feel a cold sweat break out in his neck as a sense of dread and mortal fear overwhelmed him. His body began to tremble, and finally his legs shook too much for him to continue standing hunched down. He fell back, sitting down with as much dignity as he could, and gave his nemesis a pleading look. “Rudek… please… I didn’t mean for any of it to happen. I swear!”

Rudek sneered derisively. “My words fall on deaf ears then… very well.” He looked up to listen to the voices in the distance, before fixing his gaze back on Luka. “You know those people you helped are raiders, right?” 

Luka nodded slowly. “But they’re humans. I couldn’t just leave them to-“

“Leave them to what, Luka!” Rudek barked back. “Don’t think for a second that I’ll believe you’ve changed!”

“No… I-“ Before Luka had a chance to speak further, Rudek had lowered his pistol and squeezed the trigger. The gunshot echoed in the ruins and caused a ringing pain in Luka’s ears, but it was instantly overshadowed by the sharp, burning pain in his leg. He screamed in a mix of shock and surprise, and looked down to the pool of blood forming on the ground underneath his left calf.

The voices in the distance called out to the gunshot, and Luka could hear distant footsteps, as the raiders scrambled and started to run towards the sound. Rudek only smirked and looked down on Luka, as he holstered his pistol. “Now we’re even. This is the fate you deserve, Luka.” He turned around, and began to walk away. “Now you know what it feels like!” he finally added, looking over his shoulder, and then he started to run.

Luka clenched his jaw, sucking in air between his gritted teeth as he tried to ride the pain out and think about what to do. Rudek was out of sight within just a few heartbeats, but he was no longer the immediate concern. Even though Luka wondered how he had been caught up with, he pressed that thought to the bottom of his mind as he looked to his rifle and pistol, discarded in the distance. If he could only stand up, and get over to them, he would at least have a slight chance…

He shifted about on the ground, until he sat on his knees. He could hear the raiders searching the building just next to him, as he lifted his right leg and placed his foot firmly on the ground. He finally pushed himself up, and started to limp over towards his guns.

The backpack hanging over his back was heavy, and made it harder to jump forward on one leg, not to mention making it impossible to put pressure on his injury. Wobbling on the spot, he wormed out of it, but as he got out of the last strapping the backpack fell down so he carried all of its weight in his right arm. The shifted weight made him lose his balance, and he fell hopelessly to the ground, landing over his packing.

The whole mishap had been rather loud, and as Luka re-familiarized himself with the ground, he could hear one of the men react: “Outside! Outside, you idiots!”

Luka felt his head throbbing, almost so hard that is seemed to compete with his racing heart. He had to get away, but there was no time to flee… He continued to crawl towards his guns, but it was a slow and painstaking effort. He looked down as he dragged himself forward, and he felt like he had managed to crawl a considerable length, but when he looked up to grasp for his rifle, he saw that he had only moved himself a meter at most. The guns were still much too far away, and as Luka listened, he realized it was too late, anyway.

Two black boots had just stepped around the corner, and Luka saw it was the man with the crowbar. He looked down on Luka and blinked. “Uhh… boss? Come see this…”

The leader with the improvised shoulderguards came into view and pushed his underling aside. The woman with the revolver followed right after, and in a matter of seconds the three raiders stood in a semi-circle around him. That’s when Luka noticed something was different about them; he squinted up through his blurred vision and saw that they were cover in blood. Blood and… limbs…

They were all carrying severed ghoul limbs and torsos; the leader even had them attached to hooks hanging out from his shoulderguards, while the other two carried them tied together in bundles and hanging from their sides and backs.

The ghastly sight made no sense to Luka; it was well known that covering yourself in ghoul blood and flesh would only get you sick, and it wouldn’t fool any of the real ghouls out there… but then Luka saw the faces of the three raiders; their eyes were crazed, and their mouths were dripping with far more blood than could come from the splatter of cutting off limbs.

 _‘Cannibals…’_ Luka gave them a frightened look, and felt sick to his stomach when he saw them grinning back at him.

“Well well! How absolutely wonderful,” the leader finally exclaimed. “Prey shot _himself_ , but not in head as most do…”

It took Luka a while to understand the man’s accent. He was aware that the dialect in Rus’ was different, but he hadn’t known what to expect beyond that. And even if the differences seemed to be subtle in most ways, such as mixing up V and W, it wasn’t something his terror-stricken mind was really focused on translating right now.

“Brick!” the leader called out as he turned to the blonde man with the crowbar. “Stop his bleeding, or you carry him back when he pass out.” The leader spat on the ground and wandered over to rummage through Luka’s backpack while his minion got to work.

The blonde man used one of the knives sticking out from his modified crowbar and cut loose part of Luka’s denims. Seeing the bullet had gone right through the leg, he grunted and took out a lighter, simply burning both ends of the wound shut. The pain was excruciating, and Luka lost his breath before he was even able to scream, but the man still somehow managed to hold him still.

Meanwhile, the bald woman was hunching down and jumping around Luka, observing him almost as if she was a curious animal. She tutted to herself as she watched him gasp and collapse back on the ground.

“Oh dear,” she purred, literally rolling the r. “Look what Brick did to you, you poor little thing…” She reached out, and traced one of her filthy, bloodied fingers over Luka’s cheek. He felt the urge to swat it away, but couldn’t muster the strength.

Brick snorted a laugh and shook his head. “Ylva, what have we told you?”

The woman tilted her head curiously. “But… he’s not food yet. So… I can still play with him, yes?”

A sudden realization dawned on Luka. “You… you people weren’t walking into those ghouls by mistake…” It was more of a thought meant for himself, but he was tired, and happened to say it out loud.

Ylva and Brick gave him a confused look, but it was the leader in the background that answered: “Of course it wasn’t mistake! These here are hunting grounds, we go here every week!”

Luka felt disgusted. “You go here to hunt ghouls… to eat them?”

The leader stepped up behind Ylva and Brick, carrying Luka’s backpack and two guns. The man had a perked brow, and looked at Luka as if he was daft. “Did I not just tell you that? Shufflers think they can bite us, the fuckers! But we show them… we bite them right back!”

Ylva grinned and nodded along, pointing to Luka. “You, however, are a real treat!”

“Yes! True delicacy,” the leader agreed, with a wry smile spreading across his face.

Brick grinned. “The Tsardoms allow us to feast on the ghouls out here… they encourage it, even! So long as we don’t prey on any of their subjects…”

Ylva tapped the nameplate in Luka’s jacket. “But you’re not from around here… You are from the Borderlands, aren’t you?” She sighed dreamily. “I’ve never tasted someone from that far out west before…”

Luka felt Brick nudging him in the side. The man leaned a little closer and winked. “Hey… I’m the cook. If you carry some of my limbs, I’ll make sure we kill you quickly once we’re home.”

The leader scoffed. “No. The meat slow us down enough with his injury.” He tossed Luka’s backpack over to Brick. “You carry this. Teach you not to be so cheeky… And no quick killings! If we do that, how will Ylva have her fun?”

Ylva squealed and clapped her hands excitedly, then jumped over to Luka and dragged him into what he thought to be a very misdirected hug. But then he felt something warm and wet against his neck, and after Ylva had licked him, she bit right into his flesh.

Luka was too tired to scream, but the leader must have noticed his wide eyes. “Not now, you stupid bitch!” he barked, and took a step forward. But Ylva stopped just before she broke the skin, and pouted as she slowly edged away. She shot Luka a sly wink, however, when she thought no one else could see.

The leader nodded to himself. “Good. Now tie the meat up. Then we leave.”

 

***********************************

 

The trek out of the city had been very difficult on Luka, who had been threatened with violence if he didn’t keep the pace up, and he had really struggled through the jolts of pain already burning through his leg.

The sun was rising high on the sky when the group finally reached a small shack out in the middle of the wastes. They couldn’t have travelled more than five or six kilometres, but Luka was still sweaty and miserable when he got pushed down next to the dugout fire pit outside. He cursed his luck, as even the chance to sit down and rest seemed a mixed blessing.

“Hey boss…” Brick grunted. “I’m… thirsty.” He gave a smirk that Luka didn’t quite understand the reason for. “What’s left from our mall run?”

“Just check for yourself in shack,” the leader said. “I’ve got better things to do.” He proceeded to remove the ghoul limbs from his shoulderguards and slicing the meat off the bones with a knife. The slices and slabs he produced got put on new hooks, hanging from a line out from the shed, stretching to the remaining lower half of a utility post standing nearby.

Ylva started to cut slices of meat and hang them up as well, while Brick dumped his limbs next to hers and went inside the shack. He came out moments later, holding a plastic bag. He sat down just a bit away from Luka, leaned against his backpack, and took a distinct, red-and-white can out of the bag.

The can had the typical Nuka Cola logo printed on it, but as with everything else in these lands, the logo was written in the distinctive letters of Rus’. Luka still recognized it, though, and was suddenly aware of how dry his mouth felt. He was surprised at how even survival instincts could be suppressed because of a thing like thirst.

“Hey… Brick, was it?” Luka looked up to the raider, who met his gaze, seemingly a bit surprised to be addressed. “I’ve got some water in my backpack. Perhaps you could let me-“

“I won’t waste any water on you,” Brick cut him off. “Water is scarce out here, and I could use it for a number of things when I cook.”

“Then can I have one of those?” Luka nodded to the Nuka can. Brick gave him an odd look, so he quickly added: “Would you really refuse a dead man his last drink?”

“Heh… You got some huge balls there.” Brick grinned, and despite his predicament, Luka found himself struggling not to roll his eyes at the lame remark. But Brick shuffled closer and opened the can, which made a low, fizzing sound, before he held it up so Luka could drink from it.

As soon as the contents touched his tongue, however, it burnt his mouth. Luka instantly turned away and spat the liquid out, coughing wildly. “What the hell!” he finally mustered, and looked back at the can. He helplessly studied the text on it, _Нука Водка_. “I… I don’t understand!” Luka looked pleadingly to Brick. “What _is_ that?”

Brick blinked, then burst out laughing. “Oh that’s right! You can’t read what the hell it says, can you? It’s Nuka… Vodka!” He continued to cackle, so manically that he had to put the can down and hold his sides, while Luka stared at him with a dark look.

Ylva peered over her shoulder and gave the two men a curious glance, but Brick waved his hand dismissively at her as he slowly calmed down. He gasped for breath, then looked up at Luka and smiled. “You’re not half bad, actually. It’s a bit of a shame that we’re eating you…”

“Yes… about that…” Luka remarked, dryly. “You don’t suppose we could work something out? I don’t eat ghouls, but I know how to track them… and you’ve seen that I’m good enough with a gun to take a few of them out as well.” Brick looked thoughtful, so Luka decided to push just a little further. “I also hunt more effectively in a team. I’m sure I know tactics that you three have never even considered.”

Brick frowned. “You think we’re stupid? You think we can’t look after ourselves?”

“I didn’t say that,” Luka answered in his most patient voice. “But you have hunted from the same place for a pretty long time, haven’t you?”

“Yeah…” Brick slowly nodded. “Ylva and the Boss started long before I joined up with them.”

“Guessed as much. The whole city was almost completely empty when I was in there. It won’t be long before you’ve picked off the last few ghouls around, and once you’ve done that… what will be next for you?”

“Easy,” brick said, though the uncertainty in his eyes betrayed his firm voice. “We move to a new hunting ground.”

“And where’s that?” Luka insisted. “Who will find it for you?”

“Well the Boss doesn’t concern himself with such things, but maybe…” Brick shifted his gaze to Ylva and gave her an evaluating look. He watched her take off the last slab of meat from a limb and giggle as she put it on her head like a hat, before he finally shook his head. “…no." 

“So it will be your job then,” Luka calmly stated. “And do you even have the slightest idea where to look?” Brick hesitated, so Luka added: “Careful now. If you lead them the wrong way, they might get impatient with the lack of food and decide to eat _you_ instead.”

Brick looked honestly fearful as the words sunk in, and a spark of hope ignited in Luka’s chest. “Okay, Borderlander, you have a point…” Brick finally said. “I’ll have a word with the Boss, see what I can do.”

And just as he said that, the leader turned around after hanging up the last meat slab on its hook. “Right!” he bellowed. “We’re all done here. Brick, go start a fire while Ylva has her fun. Tonight, we feast!”

Luka looked to Brick, expecting to be defended, but the blonde man had crawled away at the stern voice of his master, just like an obedient dog. Luka blinked where he sat, all alone, with a crazy bald woman giggling to herself and edging ever closer. She stopped and hunched down right in front of him, and very slowly clattered her teeth together for emphasis of what was to come next.

“…well, fuck.”


	2. Messier Greetings

_Welcome, Children of Rus! This is another scheduled broadcast from the Grand Chaplaincy, and I am, as always, the Voice of the People._

_We begin with news from the northern front, where the Karelian tribes are once again on the move. The Sisu have claimed the ruins of Volkov, but the Haltija and Tonttu seem to have withdrawn to the east._

_In an official statement, beloved High Tsar Alexander promises additional men to seize this opportunity and drive the Sisu into Lake Ladoga once and for all. Naturally, our Chaplains shall remain on the front and likewise ensure that all critique of the Dogma is removed, along with the tribal filth!_

_Let us not forget, dear listeners, that this is no ordinary dispute… this is a battle of faiths! Never forget that, and never forget that your compliance and piety is not only expected, but actively contributes towards our final victory over the wastes!_

_More news to be announced, but first, I leave you to a moment of contemplation, while we are all further roused by the tune and song of ‘Sviashchennaia Vojna’ – the Sacred War!_

 

***********************************

 

Bombastic music started flowing out of the radio, accompanied by the enthusiastic roars of a male choir. However, a meaty, closed fist soon slammed down on the small device, cracking open its bottom section and sending the batteries inside rolling out into the dirt.

“Aww Boss, come on! I was listening to that!”

“Shut up, Brick. They repeat the same damned thing every day… how aren’t you sick of it yet?”

“You know why! I’m waiting for the Voice to get drunk again and play Lasha Tumbai!”

The two men continued to bicker, but a bit away, Luka was far too preoccupied to pay them any attention. Ylva had just finished licking blood from his reopened leg wound, and now he was being forced to watch her hold a knife into the tall flames rising from the fire pit.

“Did you know, dearie?” The bald woman tapped her index finger to her chin. “Before you, when we’ve had actual humans to eat, it’s always been dead prospectors and people we had to put down…” She paused, and absentmindedly twirled the knife around in the fire for a moment, before giving Luka a gleeful look. “But _you_ are still alive, so I’m going to try something!”

Luka struggled to swallow as he watched Ylva pull away from the fire. He ached all over, and despondently tried to focus his dizzy mind on finding a way to escape, or at least buy more time.  “Hey, uhh… ‘dear,’” he began hesitantly, making a hopeless attempt to catch Ylva’s eyes as she started to tear away another piece of his denims, “it looks like you’ve strung up plenty of meat already. Won’t you risk it going bad if you start with me?“

Ylva paused and looked up at him. “Oh wow… that’s what I was thinking too, sweetie!” She pursed her lips and gave his chin a quick pinch. “Such a clever boy… yes you are!”

Luka felt an intense moment of relief, but it was rudely cut short when the crazy woman then proceeded to sink her knife into his thigh. The tip of the blade easily broke the skin, and he jerked backwards in panicked spasms as he felt the cutting pain sink all the way down into his bone.

Somewhere nearby, Luka’s pained screams spurred the two bickering men to take their argument indoors. The door to the shack slammed shut, though Luka barely noticed. Instead, he stared in horror as Ylva ripped the knife back out of his leg and inspected the newly formed wound.

“Hmm… nope,” she said as soon as blood started to ooze out, turning instead to study her knife. “I wonder if I was supposed to heat it more… It’s such a hassle, I get too impatient!”

Luka gasped for breath, the cold dry air hurting as he drew it into his sore throat. At least he felt good filling his lungs again, and while he wasn’t sure if he was shaking from a rush of adrenaline, or from the blood loss, the pain had put a keen edge to his mind again. Noticing that the two men were nowhere to be seen, he wondered if perhaps he could plant a sudden kick towards Ylva’s head with his good leg, and for that matter make it hard enough to knock her out so he could make a run for it.

An open palm pressed hard into Luka’s chest just as he relaxed to reposition himself, however, and he flew down on his back. He cursed loudly as he felt Ylva straddling him, and she peered down with a smug expression.

“Now now… that’s not how we talk,” she said, and made a sound that made it seem as if she coughed up a fit of giggles from her abdomen. “But that’s fine. I left the knife in the fire again. I guess I can try it on your tongue next.”

“Won’t that rob you of a pleasant conversation partner?” Luka grunted, only barely trailing off towards the end of the sentence as the breeze shifted slightly and carried with it a new, rancid smell.

Luka wrinkled his nose and drifted off in thought. _‘Are those the slabs of meat? No… the wind is coming from another direction…’_ He looked up at Ylva, making a point to excessively sniff the air in the hopes that she’d also notice, and lower her guard. _‘As soon as she jumps off, I’ll go for the kick…’_

But the bald head in front of him simply shook back and forth, as the woman tutted at him once more. “Aww, don’t you start sniffling now…” Her expression instantly switched into a grin. “If I can get this to work, then you’ll get to live a little longer! Means we can take off, let’s say, a leg and an arm tonight… and we keep the rest of you fresh and tasty for another day!”

_‘Seriously… that smell…’_

“Again with the sniffles!” Ylva paused, and cackled to herself. “Am I really that scary, sweetheart?”

Luka’s fright began to blend in with his frustration over the fact that she wasn’t taking the bait, and he felt a rising heat boil up in his chest. “What’s wrong with you, you clot-witted lunatic!” he finally snapped. “Take a fucking hint!”

“You called me what and a _what_ now?” Ylva whined like an entitled child. “You’re no fun when you’re mean!”

Luka was about to bite back with another remark, but instead his fright won out again. He fell silent, and stared up at the head that had just bobbed into view behind Ylva’s.

“What’s that?” Ylva hissed. “Go on, say it! Talk while you still have the chance!”

_‘Shit… my screaming attracted more of them… shit! My screaming attracted more of them! SHIT!’_ Luka began to struggle wildly, much to Ylva’s delight.

“Ohh…” she purred, “I think it’s time I go get the knife. So we can settle this nasty business.” She climbed off Luka, but froze as she turned around to be greeted by the ghoul towering over her.

And not just any ghoul. It was standing upright, lacking the feral rage in its eyes as it stared back down with what Luka thought was a sense of contempt. Short tufts of oily, black hair still grew from its head, and it was wearing woollen clothes, and an old, worn riot vest. For a ghoul, it actually looked civilized, but worst of all, the abominable creature also held a submachine gun that Luka recognized as an MP5, aiming it straight at Ylva.

Luka felt his heart pounding, and didn’t dare to move, but from the periphery of his vision he could see an additional three or four ghouls slowly shuffle closer, all clothed, and more importantly, armed.

_‘Ghouls… with guns…’_ Luka shivered, and this time he was sure it wasn’t from the adrenaline, or blood loss. This had been a reoccurring nightmare of his ever since he was a child, but to actually see it realized was something else entirely.

The ghoul opened its mouth, and Luka expected to be faced with a series of gurgling snarls, but instead, actual words flowed from what remained of the creature’s decayed lips. Words that Luka could understand.

“I suggest you step away from your friend there,” the ghoul said in a dry tone. His gravelly voice sounded like that of a chain smoker with a bad cold, something that terrified Luka further. He tried to move away, only to find that he couldn’t, but then he realized that the ghoul had spoken to Ylva.

The mad woman backed away, growling like a cornered animal. When it just about looked as if she was about to lash out and lunge at the ghoul, he calmly fired a precise warning shot right in front of Ylva’s crouching form. She wailed and spun around, trying to crawl away before one of the other ghouls firmly placed a boot over her back. She went limp, and did her best to curl into a ball in between a fit of sobs.

Luka remained frozen in terror, and could do nothing but watch as the ghoul with the submachine gun now turned to him. Their eyes met, and Luka felt that they were both simply confirming to one another that Luka was in no position to crawl away, or try to run. Thuds and raised voices could be heard from inside the shack, so the creature quickly shifted his attention once more. Along with three of the four other ghouls that were not busy watching over Ylva, he raised his gun towards the shack door and waited.

“What are you up to now, you stupid bitch?” The thick accent of the man who had only been referred to as ‘the Boss’ passed muffled through the closed door. Moments later, the large man punched the door open, but came to an instant halt with only one foot on the ground outside, making Brick walk right into his back. Both men stumbled forward awkwardly, and shared in an equally awkward silence with the ghouls pointing their guns at them.

The ghoul in the riot vest was once again the first to break the silence, as he cleared his throat to draw attention from the two humans. “Lovely little place you have here,” he said sarcastically, gesturing with his gun to the slabs of ghoul meat hanging out from the shack. “Now listen very closely, because I don’t have the patience to say this more than once… You will both surrender and lay down on the ground. You will do this now, and you won’t waste my time with any pointless excuses that we all know won’t be leading anywhere.”

Brick twitched nervously as he listened to the instructions. Once the ghoul fell silent, he instantly placed his hands over the back of his head, and fell to his knees, before lying down. The leader, however, rather obviously eyed the two crates holding up a pallet near the fire pit. His assault rifle was leaned against the makeshift table, and he began to take a few careful steps forward.

“Friends…” he began, offering a broad smile to the ghouls. “There is no need for this. Why don’t you just let me-“

A loud bang rang through Luka’s ears, and for a moment, Rudek’s harsh glare flashed before his eyes. He looked up in confusion as he could hear both Brick’s and Ylva’s panicked yells, but he couldn’t see anything. Their leader looked confused, though. Almost surprised. Then Luka saw the thin line of blood trickling down from a small hole in the man’s forehead.

A larger, much more ragged opening was revealed in the back of the man’s head as he fell forward and struck the ground. The ghoul stared blankly at the corpse for a moment, before he wheezed a sigh and turned away. Luka’s eyes followed him as he shuffled over towards Ylva, who remained curled together and whimpering.

As the ghoul got close and hunched down next to her, Ylva stared back at him with wide eyes, and snapped her teeth together. She jerked herself forward, but made a frustrated sound when the boot once again pressed down and stopped her from reaching the figure before her.

“Hmm… Sorry, doll. You’re too far gone.” The ghoul raised his gun towards Ylva’s head, and this time it was Luka who yelled when the trigger was squeezed. His eyes almost bulged as he couldn’t take them off the scene, where Ylva’s thrashing had suddenly stopped. He felt a sinking sensation in his stomach, convinced that he would be next.

Seemingly out of nowhere, Brick tumbled down on the ground next to him, and Luka realized he had been too consumed to see what had happened to him before now. The blonde man groaned, and Luka could see his hands had been tied.

Looking up, he saw a leather-clad ghoul with a rifle standing over them. A few sparsely placed strains of pale hair hung from her head like a curtain, and to Luka’s horror, she looked straight at him.

“Paidyomte sa mnoy,” she croaked, and not understanding a word, it made Luka jolt back and try to crawl away, albeit with little success. The ghoul seemed to notice and lowered her rifle, before holding her hand out. Confused with the gesture, this only caused Luka to cringe; he tried to wiggle away, struggling with his tied wrists behind his back.

The ghoul eyed him up and down before she finally sighed and moved forward in an attempt to grab him, but Luka yelped at the sudden motion and rolled to the side, bumping his head right into Brick’s.

“Fucking hell! Watch it!”

Luka winced, and if Brick continued to swear at him he didn’t notice. His vision had blurred from the sudden, sharp pain to his temple, and he could only barely make out the figure of the female ghoul that now turned away towards the rest of her group.

“Komandir!” she called out, and a familiar, masculine voice answered, though Luka didn’t understand a word of it.

_‘They’ve reverted to ghoul-speak… they don’t want us to know what they’ve got planned!’_

Luka’s mind flared up in a series of unpleasant images. He couldn’t help but picture just what sort of horrors awaited him and Brick, and one of the thoughts he frequently returned to was that of being eaten alive – something that seemed several times more harrowing now that the prospect of being eaten was to be carried out by a group of deformed zombies.

“Please…” Luka blinked rapidly, and his eyes darted up towards the female ghoul. “Before you do anything else, will you at least hear us out?”

The woman cocked her head and said something else in her incomprehensible, ghoulish language, barring all chance for a proper conversation.

“Yeah… she won’t understand you.” Luka turned sharply to the new voice, coming from the male ghoul in the riot vest who now only stood a meter away. “You’ll have better luck with me.”

“You… you can speak?” Luka felt some amount of relief, and was unable to stop his voice from going up in a slightly higher pitch than he was really comfortable with.

The ghoul, in turn, gave him an annoyed look. “I thought that much was already established…”

“Yes, but- the others… you speak… _my_ language!”

“Heh… who ever said it was yours…” The ghoul shook his head. “Now, I’m here to let you know that you and blondie are supposed to come with us, but I see you’re hurt, so I’ve radioed for-“

“Bullshit!” Brick interrupted. “I’m not going anywhere with you, shuffler!”

Luka stared in disbelief at the blonde man, who was sitting with his chest puffed up as he glared defiantly at the ghoul, who answered with a dry, largely disinterested expression.

“And how do you figure that, blondie?” the ghoul finally asked.

“You will call me Brick, you squishy sack of rot!”

“Brick, huh?” The ghoul’s mouth curled into a slight smirk. “Well, you sure seem dense as one…” He tightened the grip around his MP5 and held it up for Brick to see. “You realize I already snuffed your two friends. I’ve spared you so far because you haven’t gone mad with rad-poisoning like the girl. Therefore, you might still be useful…” He waved his gun for emphasis. “And you do _not_ want to prove otherwise to me, or you’ll end up just like them.”

Brick’s chest sank down, and he glanced from his dead leader, to Ylva’s limp corpse, and then hung his head, though Luka could see his jaw was clenched, and his eyes were still filled with a defiant anger.

“Now, as I was saying…” the ghoul continued, “I radioed for some transportation, mainly for him.” He gestured to Luka, though keeping his eyes on Brick. “After this little outburst, though, I believe _you_ shall have to walk by foot with the others.”

Brick looked as if he was about to come up with a spiteful retort, but before he had a chance, the group was interrupted by the relatively soft roaring of an engine, off in the distance. “And that will be our transport,” the ghoul noted in a surly manner as he turned to Luka. “Listen smootshkin, if I untie your hands, can I trust you not to do anything reckless?”

Luka simply nodded.

“Good.” The ghoul lowered his submachine gun and pulled out a knife instead, with which he stepped around and cut the bonds. “I’ll see if we can’t do something about your bleeding, but patching you up more proper shall have to wait until a little later.”

Luka carefully moved his arms, and massaged his sore wrists. He felt stiff, but managed to get to his feet with some help, just as a ghoul on a green motorcycle drove up to the shack and stepped off. Luka gave the machine a curious look while he was lead over to it, and as he was seated in the sidecar, he noted that it had the worn down symbol of a red star painted on its side.

The ghoul in the riot vest exchanged some words with the motorcycle’s original driver, but Luka couldn’t understand any of it. Instead, he noted that there was a small imprint in the hull of the sidecar. Letters, that he could read: _Boudicca-78/S_. The name wasn’t familiar to him, so he couldn’t help but wonder if it, along with the number and letter combination, suggested there were more of these things around. A motorcycle was a rare luxury back home in the borderlands, and he had heard they were uncommon even amongst the Britannian warbands, but yet these ghouls had called one in as if it was nothing.

Luka shivered as he pictured what his nightmares would look like from now on… Angry ghouls with guns had just been upgraded to a rabid biker gang of affluent zombies, who could taunt their human victims in two languages while they gunned them down…

“Open the compartment in front of you.” Luka blinked and looked up, finding his ghoulish benefactor had just sat himself down in the driver’s seat. “Well, go on! There should be a stimpack inside. Use it, before you smear more red gunk inside this thing!”

Luka did as he was told, and opened the compartment. There wasn’t much inside, but he did find a stimpack just as promised. He held the long syringe-like device in both his hands, and suddenly realized that he had never used one of these things before. He turned to the ghoul, giving him a confused look.

“Oh for the love of…” The ghoul yanked the stimpack away, and roughly stabbed it into Luka’s bare leg, before he had time to react in any other way than drawing a quick breath.

As he watched the stimpack’s contents being injected through its long needle, Luka felt his leg go a little numb. Soon, a tingling sensation spread throughout his body, from his toes, and all the way out into his fingertips. He smiled to the pleasant sensation, and as he looked down, he saw that the bleeding from his two wounds had stopped almost entirely.

“Right then,” the ghoul finally said and cast the used-up stimpack aside. “You’ve still lost quite a bit of blood, and given how easily you smoothskins break, that’s probably something that should be seen to.” He made a quick motion that Luka didn’t quite follow, and the motorcycle roared as it came back to life.

Moments later, Luka felt the cold air of the wasteland strike against him as the motorcycle gained speed, and he hurried to close his thermal jacket and huddle down in his seat. He felt a little dizzy, and his thoughts flowed slowly as if they were forcing themselves through a thick coating of oil. “My gear… no- wait, where are you taking me!” he finally demanded.

“I’ll tell you all of that once you are a little less delirious,” the ghoul answered. The noises from the motorcycle forced him to raise his tone somewhat, but it didn’t make such a racket that the two men had to shout.

“Regardless,” Luka insisted, more curious now than frightened, “I’d feel a little better if I knew who you were.”

The ghoul answered with a dry chuckle, before he bothered to speak: “We _were_ humans. But that was long ago, as I’m sure you can tell.”

Luka shook his head. “I didn’t mean like that. Who are _you_ , you specifically?”

“Me _specifically_ , huh? I could see the fear in your eyes once we showed up… I should think regardless of your background, you’d be more concerned about us as a group.”

“No.” Luka once again shook his head, a little more briskly this time. “You’re not like the others. You speak my-“ He stopped, remembering the remark from before. “...I meant to say, you speak English. And without the typical, Rus’…ian… accent.” Another pause. Luka stuck his tongue into his right cheek. “Is _Rus’ian_ even a word?”

“Right.” The ghoul grunted back. “You’re rambling. I’m not sure how much of this you’ll remember, but I suppose it’s common courtesy that we introduce ourselves. I’ve already read the name off of your jacket, but how about you start, anyway.”

“Luka. I’m Luka.”

“Well, that was certainly… rich…” The ghoul scowled, and for a moment Luka thought he wasn’t going to say anything else, but then he continued: “You were right. I am not like the others. I once was human, then for a long time, I accepted my fate as a ghoul. But I have evolved beyond that. I no longer have a true name, though the ghouls out here call me ‘Commander’. But that is not entirely true either. I have reached the point where I see the world for what it truly is, and I see it for all its idiocy… _That_ is who I am, and that is why I am expected to fulfil the role of a Commander. I am Certainty. I am Truth. And if you want a name for me… you may call me, _Pravda_.”

Luka looked up with an uncomfortable smile after the tirade was over. He nodded slowly, without saying a word. _‘Great,’_ he thought to himself as he looked back down into the sidecar. _‘Another crazy person.’_

A relatively comfortable silence followed, and the steady sound of the motorcycle’s engine began to sedate Luka’s mind further. He felt increasingly exhausted, and found he had a hard time keeping his eyes open. He could hear Pravda say something, but the croaky voice seemed distant, only serving to rock Luka deeper into his slumber. Once again the ghoul called out, and moments later, the motorcycle’s engine roared a little louder. But he wasn’t bothered; instead he closed his eyes, and drifted off into the darkness.

 

***********************************

 

_‘Luka! Where are you! LUKA!’_

The screams echoed once more through his mind, and Luka found himself shooting up in a seated position. He felt jolts of pain coursing through his leg from the sudden movement, but he didn’t care. As far as he knew, he was still back in the Borderlands, on that day, in that moment…

And there was only one thing on his mind.

Looking wildly around him, he was surprised to find that he was inside a small room, sitting on an examining table. He blinked in confusion at the thin blanket resting over his legs and lower body, but finally, the memories of the past weeks slowly began to wash over him once more.

Luka relaxed, but only barely. As he recalled, he was still in something of a predicament. These ghouls… or whatever they were, hadn’t said what they wanted him for, and he could still imagine a whole range of things, mostly leaning towards less and less pleasant.

Looking under the blanket, he found that his leg wounds had been treated and bandaged, however, and from the slight pull he felt from the wounds, he guessed they had also been stitched. He stopped as he also noticed a small needle taped to his wrist, along with a length of tubing. He ripped the tape off, and pulled the needle out.

_‘Did they keep me sedated? No… or well, maybe, but this has to be a medical facility… so…’_

On a chair next to the examining table, Luka found a change of clothes. The black jeans looked like they had never been worn before, even though they were obviously from before the war. And while he liked the colour of his old denims better, Luka found this to be a rare treat.

At first, he struggled to put the jeans on, as it caused him some discomfort to stand, but finally he sat himself back on the table while he pulled them up over his legs, and they proved to fit him perfectly. Feeling uplifted, he put on a new pair of socks as well, and then finally picked up a black T-shirt from the chair. He recognized it as his own, but noted that it had been washed, and even ironed.

_‘Another extravagance…’_

Looking around, he also found his boots, but he couldn’t find his jacket, or any of his other equipment. But he felt much better about his situation, and began to suspect that he could just ask about that later. He limped over to the door and gave it a push, then a pull, but it remained unmoving.

_‘Locked?’_ Luka scowled. He had been treated for his injuries, given new clothes, and was even left unguarded… but was he a prisoner after all? He looked up to the walls, and suddenly felt as if they had begun to lean in over him. And had the roof always been that low?

His eyes wandered uncomfortably over the room, until they settled on a desk near the examining table. He went to look at the items lying out on top of it, finding several types of surgical tools including scalpels, needles, and a few items he couldn’t even identify. He went through them all and grabbed a few, including a long scalpel with a bent hook at the end, and a few sturdy, long needles. They were certainly improvised lock picks, but they would have to do.

Returning to the door, Luka had to go through several of the items he had picked up, until he found a combination that worked. He found that the cylinder of the lock gave in a little more when he tried to turn it counter-clockwise, and realized that was the way he had to work it. He proceeded to carefully push up the pins inside the lock, feeling a coat of sweat form on his forehead as he concentrated on the task. A few painstaking minutes, and two failures later, he finally managed to slide the cylinder up. He heard a satisfying _click_ as the door unlocked, and he carefully opened it.

He peered out into a dimly lit, empty hallway, and felt instantly relieved to step out of the cramped room. But as soon as he did, he realized what this must look like; regardless of whether he was a prisoner or not, he had just escaped from his room, showing very little faith in those who were nursing him back to health.

For a moment, he considered going back into his room, but the thought of the enclosed walls stopped him, and instead, he gripped the lock picks tighter in his hands. He wasn’t going to leave himself at the mercy of _anyone_ , least of all a band of ghouls, and so he proceeded to sneak down the dark corridor.

The hallway felt unpleasant as well, but at least out here it was the looming darkness in the distance that suggested the space was in any way limited, and darkness, unlike a wall, could be passed through to reach the light on the other side. But it wasn’t long until Luka spotted cracks of light seeping out from underneath another door. This one also had a window in it, so Luka decided to stand up and peer through it. The interior was bland and grey, and the room was empty save for one lone figure.

_‘Brick.’_

Luka scowled; he really just wanted to leave without giving the man a second thought, but fleeing would be easier if they worked together. Then again, did he really want to release a self-professed cannibal upon the wastes again?

But the hesitation had been long enough for Brick to catch a glimpse of him in the window and jump to his feet. He called out, and although the sound was muffled through the door, Luka was scared that the noise would attract attention. He gave Brick a nod and gestured for him to be quiet, then hurried to pick the lock.

The door quietly slid open, and Luka stepped inside to cut Brick’s hands free from their bonds. The scalpel sliced easily through the rope, and soon, Brick stood freed and ready to be unleashed on the world once more. He grinned wickedly at Luka, who could practically feel Karma reel its head at him, point a finger and go: _‘I saw that.’_

“Hey, thanks!” Brick exclaimed, but after noticing Luka’s frantic waving he lowered his voice. “So… we in any danger?”

“Not right now,” Luka whispered back. “But we should get out of here…” Brick stared at him, making no move to speak, so Luka continued. “Don’t worry, I have a plan. We should find that motorcycle that carried me here, or one like it, and we’ll drive it to the closest human settlement we can find… once there, we barter it away for new equipment and essentials, and then we go separate ways.”

Brick sneered. “You make it sound so easy… but you realize we are out in the middle of nowhere, right? How do we even begin to find any settlements?”

“Well… I had rather hoped you could help with that,” Luka admitted.

“I only saw ruins and more ghouls when they marched me here…” Brick growled angrily. “Two days, it took to walk… I hope you’ve been comfortable with that killer freak!”

Luka blinked. Two days? Had he been out for that long? “What direction did they lead you during all that time?” he finally asked. “North? East? South?”

Brick glared angrily. “How the hell should _I_ know?”

“Right…” Luka peered out into the dark hallway once more. “We shall just have to think on our feet.” He motioned for Brick to follow. “Come on!”

The two men continued through the monstrously long hallway, which Luka had started to think of as more like a tunnel through a cave than a proper building. They hurried past two side-corridors, keeping a steady pace mainly because Brick never seemed to have heard about the concept of sneaking before this moment.

“I swear…” Brick grumbled, “I hope that freak who captured us is in here, somewhere…”

Luka felt mildly uncomfortable hearing the blonde man’s malevolent tone, and gave him a searching look before he whispered back: “Brick… you won’t go off on a wild rampage just as we can taste freedom, will you?”

“Guess not, but…” The blonde man’s eyes narrowed. “Two days! If someone deserves their neck snapped, it’s that fucking shuffler.”

“His name is Pravda,” Luka noted, surprised to find a hint of annoyance in his own voice.

Brick shrugged pointedly. “Whatever.”

Luka let the exchange drop, as the looming blackness in the hallway in front of them had started to fade with each step. At last, at the end of the room, he could see another door. There were no cracks of light from the keyhole or from underneath the door, so he waved for Brick to be still while he rested his ear towards its smooth, cold surface.

Unable to hear anything from the other side, Luka finally tugged at the door. Ever so carefully, he opened it, though he nearly jumped when its hinges creaked softly in the darkness.

There was no source of light inside, so Luka kept the door open, but to his disappointment he soon found that the room was a dead end. It was small, and seemed to be a storage space. He was about to close it and turn back when he could hear Brick make an excited sound and head inside.

The blonde man bumped into Luka as he passed by, and nearly made him lose his balance, but as he followed into the room, he saw what he had missed. The room was indeed a storage space, and aside from an assorted number of weaponry that Brick had busied himself by looking through, Luka also spotted a familiar jacket, a worn hunting rifle, a Beretta, and a backpack.

Luka went for the jacket first, carefully tracing his fingers over it before putting it on. It felt like reuniting with an old friend, but not as much as when he gripped his hunting rifle and swung it over his shoulder. As he continued to place the Beretta’s holster to his good leg, he could see Brick rummage around in the corner of his eye; out of all the perfectly good assault rifles lined against the wall, he ignored them all and settled for a piece of iron pipe.

“Really? You’re going for the pipe?” Luka held back a sigh as he saw Brick grin back at him.

“Well… yeah.” The blonde man nodded. “Guns jam and need reloading, you know… And besides,” he made a gesture for the line of assault rifles, “I don’t know how far out west you’re from, but AK47’s can be found all over the place out here. If we’re in a tight spot, I’ll find one on the road.”

Luka wasn’t entirely convinced, but he finally nodded anyway. “Okay, fine. I guess it’s better if we travel lightly. I really need my guns, but I guess I can leave my backpack behind. It will just slow me down.”

“Now that’s more like it!” Brick beamed wickedly, and didn’t even bother to lower his voice this time. “Now, let’s go find some shuffler skulls to bash in!”

Luka stopped halfway in the motion of holstering his Beretta, staring up at Brick. “…what? I thought we’d agreed on a plan. And…” He frowned. “I thought you assured me that you’d be… rampage-free.”

“Well that was before we got armed!” Brick exclaimed. “Come on, we can’t let these bastards off! They killed my friends, and besides…” He held up a number of fingers. “TWO DAYS!”

“Oh boohoo!” Luka called back, also raising his voice. All thoughts of discretion had passed from his mind, as he felt anger and frustration take hold again. For a moment he saw Ylva’s stupid head flash before his eyes, then the can of Nuka Vodka, and Brick bending over to laugh at him. “Two days?” he asked mockingly. “Did your poor widdle feet catch blisters? Do you have _any_ idea how far I've travelled to get here?”

“Well what of it. I’m sure you’re used to-“

“I’ve been chased, shot, nearly eaten by the people I thought I was saving, and if you think forced marches are so fucking bad, try again once you have a bullet wound in your leg!” Luka glared daggers at Brick, who stared back in annoyance. Something about the man’s face made it impossible for Luka to stop: “And that was all just in _one day_! Too bad they killed your friends, but guess what? Those two were human trash! Ylva was a deranged lunatic, and your leader was twice as thick as you, which is a goddamn feat in itself!”

“Did you just call me stupid?!?” Brick yelled back. “Fuck you, man! Perhaps I’ll bash your head in as well!”

Luka swiftly raised his Beretta just as Brick seemed about to take a step forward. “Don’t try it.”

“Oh, so that’s it then… You’re siding with the shufflers?” Brick glowered angrily, though Luka could see the primal fear in his eyes. The kind that only comes from staring down the barrel of a gun.

Luka hissed between his gritted teeth. “I guess I have no choice. Letting you out was a mistake, and I can’t have a liability following me around.” He knew there was only one way out of this. He’d have to shoot Brick. Despite his anger, Luka felt a little uneasy at the thought, but decided that he should at least make it clean. He wasn’t going to be like Rudek…

As he pressed his finger to the trigger mechanism, and adjusted his hand for better aim, Luka heard a faint clicking sound, followed by something clattering to the floor below him. Both Luka and Brick looked down, one staring with disbelief at the ammo clip that had just fallen out of the pistol, while the other’s gaze darted up with a gleeful look.

_‘Shit! Something must have damaged the magazine catch!’_ Luka slowly looked back up to return Brick’s gaze with a sheepish smile. “Err… I don’t suppose there’s time to back this conversation up a bit?”

Brick grinned wickedly and shook his head. He spun the iron pipe around, and as soon as Luka reached for his rifle, Brick knocked it out of his hands. “Nono, we will have none of that,” he said tauntingly. He was about to continue, when a loud cough from the direction of the door interrupted him.

Luka turned quickly to see a dark silhouette by the door, with hunched shoulders and some sort of gun pointed into the room. “You two sure cause a racket,” the figure dryly noted, and Luka recognized the raspy voice instantly.

_‘Pravda…’_


	3. "Special" Annotations

Pravda stood with his submachine gun aimed at Brick, although Luka could feel the ghoulish silhouette’s eyes being set on him. “You woke up a little sooner than we had planned,” Pravda calmly noted. “Good on you.”

“Wait…” Luka blinked. “You’re not upset?”

“Well the whole ‘from the ashes into the fire’ thing doesn’t really seem new to you,” the ghoul answered somewhat cryptically. “One has to anticipate these things… In truth, I am actually pleased.” He motioned for Luka to step out of the room, and he complied, but as soon as Brick tried to do the same, the ghoul raised his MP5 once more.

“Hey! What gives!” Brick huffed indignantly.

“As for Blondie here…” Pravda calmly continued.

“Call me ‘Blondie’ again and I’ll-“ Brick’s protests were drowned out by a hailstorm of bullets, as Pravda emptied his submachine gun. Luka jumped back as soon as the firing of the gun lit up the area around them, illuminating Brick while his upper body was reduced to little more than a limbless, fleshy mulch draping the tattered remains of a ribcage.

“…less pleased.” Pravda concluded, and shuffled over to the body. He gave it a light kick. “One thing, Luka… Your plan with the motorcycle was great, but your choice of companions still need some work.”

Having barely had time to reel from the initial shock of what just transpired, Luka still found himself asking: “You… overheard all of that?”

“Evidently.” Pravda returned out of the room, brushing the backs of his hands against his riot vest to wipe them free of blood stains. Seeing Luka’s blank expression, he pointed up to a metallic box attached to the side of the roof. “Through one of those.” Another silence, and Pravda made a discontent grumble. “It’s a surveillance camera. They’re all equipped with audio recorders around here… You never saw one of those before?”

Luka slowly shook his head, staring back into the supply room rather than following Pravda’s pointing finger. “Did you really have to kill him?”

“Hmm?” Pravda gave Luka a long look. “Who, Blondie? Yeah, obviously.”

“Why?” Luka insisted. “You could have just let him go.”

“And then he would have gone looking for another gang of cannibals to join, or gotten eaten by one while he searched… unless he opted to go solo. Even worse, he might have stayed close to prey on our patrols, out of some misguided sense that we have slighted him and have to pay.”

“And who says that’s how it would have to be,” Luka protested. “Couldn’t he just as well have accepted that he was in the wrong, and learned from his mistakes?” He trailed off at the end, realizing that the straws he was grasping for had long since been picked away, if they ever existed at all.

“I daresay,” Pravda dryly noted as he saw the conviction fade from Luka’s eyes. “You seem to have struck the stone line of reality with the shovel of a stupid question.”

“At least I know to stop digging,” Luka muttered, and looked back to the supply room. “I guess this means I’m still not allowed to my belongings?”

“Well if you feel like wading through a pool of blood to get them, then go right ahead.”

Luka scowled. “Good point… and it looks like my pistol broke, anyway.”

“Then leave your things behind. I’ll send someone to clean the place out, and have a look at your gear as well.” Pravda paused to pick a piece of Brick from his forehead. “And if they can clean out all the splatter, I am sure they can also make a few repairs.”

“How very kind...” Luka sighed, and felt his shoulders sink down. “But then you have other plans for me, right now?”

Pravda’s head bobbed in a slight nod. “You will be extended an… offer, of sorts. But I am outside my district, so I’ll have to bring you to the local Section Chief and have him talk to you…” The ghoul shrugged, and Luka thought he both looked and sounded a little more annoyed than before. “I’m sorry about that. I would have taken you to my direct superior up north if only you weren’t leaking all over my bike. The local Chief out here was peculiar enough as a human, and it’s only gotten worse since his brain got nuked with radiation… But, I suppose we’ll have to make the best of it.”

“Well…” Luka carefully began. “Why don’t you just take me north right now? I mean, here I am…”

“Politics, and all that. You fall under the local jurisdictions, and as a smoothskin I can’t take you away before I get a green light to do so.” Pravda made a low, wheezing sound. “Basically, it’s all about who’s got first dibs on you.”

Luka frowned. “So I’m a commodity?” Seeing Pravda make no move to answer, he continued as another question caught up with him: “Where the hell am I, anyway?”

“You are in the _Oblast_. In your language that translates loosely as ‘the Province.’ It’s a region of non-feral ghouls.”

“ _Non_ -feral? Wait… _feral_?” Luka felt a foreboding thought creeping up in the back of his mind. “So there are more ghouls out here… like you?”

Pravda flashed a very thin, slanted grin. “Damn straight. We got sick of being hunted down by a bunch of ignorant humies, so we banded together. Even the Tsardoms stay clear of us now.”

Luka instantly had the thought to ask about the Tsardoms, which he guessed were the local human tribes, but there was something venomous about how Pravda spoke the word, so he chose to leave it and settle with his second question: “Right. So this is why we only encounter… err… ‘feral’ ghouls out in the wastes? All non-ferals live in this… ‘province?’”

Even though he thought he had asked a less sensitive question, Luka still noted that Pravda settled back into his natural scowl. “Well, that, and the fact that you smoothskins instantly panic and shoot at anything that looks even remotely mutated. Especially you Borderlanders have made a habit of it, with that precious ‘Reclamation Army’ of yours.”

Luka blinked. “You know of us?”

“From the few borderland ghouls that made it out here, we know a few things yes… Mainly that you’re an ‘army’ only in name. You go through all the work of pretending differently, but frankly, you seem to be little more than a ragtag band of partisans. In any case, it’s not like you’ve managed to ‘reclaim’ much of anything…”

Luka’s gaze fell to the floor. The words had struck closer to home than he would willingly admit. Pravda nodded to himself as if taking note, and continued: “You may want to take that stupid jacket off, just in case. But for what it’s worth, I don’t hold anything against you. Even if you’ve killed some of ours, you strike me as a person who has only tried to survive.”

“Right… Well we can leave that.” As he spoke, Luka made a point to adjust the jacket a little better over his shoulders. Finally, he gave Pravda a stubborn look. “Now tell me something else… You said you couldn’t take me to the place you wanted, but then where _have_ you taken me? Specifically, I mean.”

“You are in Kiev, the second largest city of the Oblast.” Pravda cocked his head. “Well actually… you’re just in the outskirts of Kiev. In Seventeen.”

“…Seventeen?” Luka gave the ghoul an incredulous look.

“This building. It’s where the Section Chief resides.” Pravda gestured his arm out towards the dark hallway. “If you’re curious, this place is a whole story in itself, but we should really get going. I guess I can tell you while we walk, since I suppose you won’t be able to move all that fast, whatwith the shape you’re in…”

“I still don’t get why I have to meet with this ‘chief’ of yours,” Luka objected.

“Well,” Pravda began, “I guess you don’t remember everything I said back at the shack, but… You’ve proven useful.” Seeing Luka cross his arms unhappily, the ghoul grunted. “The Chief can explain the rest. Now come along, and you’ll find out…”

 

***********************************

 

As the two men wandered down a maze of corridors and hallways, Luka realized that the building he had tried to sneak out of was massive. At every turn he expected to see an exit, or at least a window, but the maze just continued.

“So, Seventeen…” Pravda continued. “It’s a big, pre-war research facility. One out of many. This one was called the _Lunar Centre XVII_ , but we shortened it down somewhat… as you can tell.”

“Were all the other facilities this big?” Luka asked, before another thought struck him. “Wait… ‘lunar’… you mean the moon?”

Pravda nodded stiffly. “Yes.”

“Why seventeen centres dedicated to the same thing?”

“Twenty, actually.” Pravda opened another door and let Luka through. “It was kind of a big deal back then. Big source of work for the national intelligence agencies, which tried to infiltrate and sabotage places like these.”

“…so the people back then had twenty centres focusing on the same work, in case some of them were compromised?” Luka felt a little sick, imagining all the resources wasted on such a project.

“Not quite. Most of these were fake, with a minimal support staff only _thinking_ they were assisting with the research project. There were an additional couple of places where actual work was being made, but these centres were smokescreens meant to distract foreign spies.”

Luka imagined just how massive this building alone must be, and felt even more disgusted. “What the hell did they work on anyway, that was so important?”

“They were working out a way to draw solar energy from the moon,” Pravda answered almost dispassionately. “No clouds or weather conditions up there, so it would have been simple enough to plan for a guaranteed, maximized output. They’d have sent the power back to Earth, probably in the form of microwaves, and while it might not have solved the fuel crisis, it would certainly have solved the energy crisis.”

Luka nodded thoughtfully. “That actually sounds pretty good… why did people try to sabotage the effort?”

Pravda let out a dry, derisive laugh. “Ohh, you don’t get it, do you? Seriously Luka, wisen up. Obviously, each superpower had its own research programme looking into this. Being first with solving the problem would mean being first to place solar panels on the moon.” He paused and looked to Luka expectantly, but being greeted with a blank expression he sighed and continued: “The country with the solar panels would control the energy output, and in turn, they’d control how it was dispensed on Earth. Get it now?”

“They didn’t cooperate, so nobody could afford not to be first…” Luka shook his head in disbelief at the perceived folly. “Did all the other countries have as many centres dedicated to this?”

“Proxy ones?” Pravda chortled dryly again. “No… you can thank the Soviet bureaucracy for that.” He opened yet another door, and finally showed Luka a staircase leading down to a lower floor. As they began to walk it, he continued to speak: “Though these places were not completely useless. The centres hired a few, individual scientists that were allowed to pursue their own, separate experiments. All off the official records… in fact, that’s how the Section Chief got to be here. I’ll tell you right now that he was one of those people… because believe me, that will make everything else you’re about to experience, make a lot more sense…”

The two men reached the end of the stairs, and Luka squinted a bit as the lower floor was much better lit, with a length of white-glowing cylinders lined along the roof. He thought for a moment about what Pravda had said, then gave him a nervous look: “I’m not in any danger, am I?”

“The Chief doesn’t experiment on humans, so no. Like I’ve told you, he’s just… strange.”

Luka slowly nodded and looked around the new room they had entered. It was mostly empty, but the walls were covered with so many posters that they looked like improvised wallpaper. Some of them showed strange diagrams, series of numbers, and symbols that Luka didn’t recognize, but a few of the posters were just pictures.

Luka stopped up next to one image in particular; it depicted a blonde man in a white cotton shirt and blue overalls. On his head he had a blue flat cap, and in his hands he held a slender pole, with a large, red flag hanging from the top. So far, this was nothing out of the ordinary, and Luka even recognized the same male archetype from several of the billboards he had passed by earlier in the wastes.

What made this image different was what the man with the flag was doing. He was marching out on a thin, white line of road, stretching throughout space. In fact, the Earth couldn’t be seen in the picture, but instead, the road was leading off to a large, celestial body in the distance. Luka frowned, noting that it was coloured red.

“…is that supposed to be the moon?” He beckoned Pravda over, and pointed to the poster.

“Hmm? Oh. No… of course not.” The ghoul gave Luka a surprised look. “That’s Mars.” Another pause. “Oh, that’s right, I didn’t mention that… Well it eventually became apparent that China and the United States were spearheading the whole lunar frontier, so the Soviets were forced to think one step further. Some scientists were convinced that the nuclear war was certain to happen, so they began to advocate resettlement instead.”

Luka stared at the poster in disbelief. “They’d rather run to another planet than fix things here?”

“Hey,” Pravda said sarcastically. “They didn’t call it the _red_ planet for nothing…” He looked up to the poster and traced his left index finger over the red sphere. “I actually hear one of these centres got pretty close to sending a rocket. To start terraforming and such. The settlers had even been chosen… we have one of them living with us here, I think you met her...”

Luka winced a bit as he recalled the female ghoul that had startled him back at the shack.

“But as with many other things,” Pravda continued, “I guess there just wasn’t enough time.” He shrugged. “Oh well… come on, we’ve lingered long enough.”

They stepped through another door, into a slightly less-lit room. Or rather, the dim light from the ceiling lamps didn’t illuminate the room as much as the large amount of screens along the walls. Luka looked them all over in wonder; some screens were broken, or only showed garbled static, but several others showed actual, moving images.

He recognized an image of the supply room where two ghouls were currently preoccupied swabbing the floor, but other screens showed images of places that couldn’t possibly be nearby. A few screens showed stars, space, the Earth from above, and even a strange metallic craft floating in the blackness. Yet other screens showed landscapes unlike Rus, and some even showed the interiors of other buildings.

Luka’s eyes lingered on a screen depicting a robot of an unfamiliar model, standing next to an elevator with the number _38_ on the doors. But finally, he broke away from the cascade of images and looked wide-eyed to Pravda. “What… what _is_ this place?” he finally stuttered.

Pravda grumbled, clearly not sharing in Luka’s sense of awe. “It’s where I thought we would find that son of a bitch…” he muttered. “But no. Let’s keep looking.”

The ghoul shuffled onwards through the room, leaving Luka no choice but to follow. They passed a number of doors, and Pravda knocked on a few of them with no answer, until they finally reached the final door at the end of the room. This time, Pravda didn’t knock; he simply pushed it open and stepped through.

Luka followed, finding that this new room also had all sorts of oddities and pieces of technology lined along the walls. The air felt a little warmer in here, and Luka noted a faint humming sound reaching up from belowground. As he tried to place the sound, his eyes wandered to a second figure in the room, sitting hunched over a in an office chair and writing away on a notepad.

Luka wasn’t surprised to see that the figure was another ghoul, dressed in a brown, pre-war suit. The ghoul scribbled across the notepad at a hypnotizing pace, droning to himself as he did. Luka wasn’t too bothered by it, until he saw a green glow flowing up from underneath the skin of the figure’s right hand. He quickly looked to Pravda for some sort of confirmation, but he was too busy shuffling closer to the second figure to notice.

“Well! Finally!” Pravda exclaimed. “Why the hell are you hiding in here?”

The ghoul in the chair finally stopped his monotone humming, although his hand darted one last time over the notepad before he also put it down. “Ahh, my dear friend…” The ghoul slowly stood and turned around. Luka noted that his voice wasn’t quite as croaky as Pravda’s, although still deep and gravelly. “I thought you’d _expect_ me to be here.”

“So you’re calling dibs then…” Pravda grumbled. “Don’t you have some questions you want to ask him first?”

The ghoul in the brown suit calmly shook his head. “Not _those_ sorts of questions, although I have questions a-plenty.”

Luka blinked and looked quickly back and forth between the ghouls. “Err… So just what is going on right now?”

It was the ghoul with the green glow that turned to face Luka first. “My apologies, Corporal Jasienski.” He made a swift, almost theatrical bow. “Mister Pravda here was hoping that I would pass up this golden opportunity, giving his superior another boring lapdog. But I think that would be a waste of your potential.”

This time it was Pravda who looked back and forth between Luka and the other ghoul. “Wait… what?”

“Pravda’s superior is the Section Chief of Raion,” the second ghoul swiftly continued. “It was called Chernobyl before the war, if you perhaps know it from some old map, but we changed its name when it became the Capitol of the Oblast.”

“Right…” Luka said slowly. “And what does that have to do with… well, anything?”

The ghoul held his hands up in a reassuring gesture. “Not to worry! I am just setting the stage for you… See, the directive from Raion is that any humans we rescue during our border patrols should be recruited into the service of the Oblast. Once we return them to the Tsardoms up north, they report back to us as informants.”

“Yeah well that’s great,” Luka muttered. “But I don’t know a thing about the Tsardoms. I’m not from around here…”

“That’s it exactly!” The ghoul snapped his fingers, though they made more of a sickening, squishy sound than anything else. “You are not one of them. They are as different to you as they are to us… Sure, perhaps that might ensure a higher degree of loyalty in you, but as I said… I think you are wasted on this type of work.” The ghoul glanced to Pravda, who was glowering back at him. “Corporal Jasienski… I want to follow you. Even if it’s from a distance… I want to _observe_!”

“Oh not this shit again!” Pravda complained.

The second ghoul merely hushed him, and turned back to Luka. “Corporal Jasienski. It is true that I am the Section Chief of Kiev. But I also fill a far more important role.” He made a dramatic pause. “You may call me… _The Narrator_.”

 

***********************************

 

Pravda and the Narrator had spent a good hour arguing back and forth, during which time Luka had learned a number of things. For one, he was starting to guess that the new names and functions these ghouls seemed to be giving themselves was a way for them to stay at least relatively sane as the centuries passed them by.

He had also learned that the Narrator had dabbled in counter-espionage before the war, and now used his equipment to document and write the tales of the wastelands. It was more than a hobby, since the section he was meant to administer seemed to run smoothly on its own. This was what gave him purpose.

However, Luka was slowly growing weary, and unable to fully keep up with the back-and-forth.

“…and what about the way you just killed that blonde fellow!” the Narrator argued. “No build-up! No nothing! This lack of dramatic flare is _exactly_ why I don’t like to work with you and your chief!”

“Then give us Luka and I’ll be happy to leave you alone!” Pravda hissed back.

Luka let out a loud, disgruntled sigh. “Maybe you could let me choose for myself?” Both ghouls stopped and glanced to Luka as if they had forgotten that he was still in the room, but finding he at least had their attention, he continued: “I’ll give it some thought, but maybe you can help me out with another little problem first… No matter who I side with, I still don’t understand the language or writing out here. How will you remedy _that_?”

“Simple!” the Narrator answered. “One of my old colleagues used to experiment with memory transfers. I still have his old device, so I’ll just hook you up to it.” Seeing Luka about to protest, the ghoul quickly added: “It’s quite safe, we’ve used it in the past. …but if I let you use it, will you humour me with a little test, right after?”

“Seems fair enough,” Luka agreed. “Nothing too complicated?”

“Not at all.” The Narrator gestured to a metallic chair in the corner of the room, and Luka took a seat. He watched Pravda pace back and forth in the background and mutter to himself while the Narrator attached several conductor rods to Luka’s forehead. After that was done, he stepped over to a computer terminal and started to frantically type on the keyboard.

“So… are you sure this is saf-“ Luka was cut short when the conductors sparked and flared up. It felt like a wave of electricity coursed through his body, and he felt his muscles tense up. But soon, a stream of awareness entered his mind. He recognized the many letters he had seen before; they floated before his eyes. He knew they were called Cyrillic, and he knew what each symbol meant. Then came the language itself, and a complacent smirk spread over Luka’s lips.

_‘Russian…’_ he thought to himself. _‘Rus-ian… Hah! It actually was a word!’_

The Narrator pressed another button on the terminal, shutting down the conductor rods and ending the process. “How are you feeling?” he asked, as he helped Luka out of the chair.

“I… I think it worked,” Luka answered. “That’s amazing!” He felt a little dizzy from standing up so fast, and wobbled uneasily on the spot.

Pravda shook his head at the display. “Best we try it out… Do you have anything he can read around here…” The ghoul began to look around the room. “No books, it seems, but…” He shuffled over to a magazine on the Narrator’s desk, but blinked as he got a closer look at it. He held the magazine up, making no attempt to hide his annoyed glare. “Really? This is all you got? I thought you were a self-professed storyteller…”

The Narrator chortled and made a hand gesture that Luka didn’t quite see; he was too focused on the magazine and the cover. He recognized the man depicted on it; the same male archetype as on the Mars-poster in the other room, and on the billboards in the wastes.

“You know the Soviets completely stole this concept, right?” Pravda grumbled. “I mean look at it! It’s practically the Vault Boy, only in different clothes…”

Luka didn’t understand what Pravda referenced, so he began to study the rest of the cover, pleased to find that he could actually understand the Cyrillic letters now. The header on the cover read: _New Soviet Man_ , and underneath it continued, in much smaller print. Luka wasn’t able to read it until Pravda plodded over and handed him the magazine: _Energy for the Soviet states: Special Edition in celebration of the 28 th Five-Year plan!_

“Sift through a few pages,” Pravda said. “See if you understand them.”

Luka opened the magazine and went straight to one of the middle pages, where he found a short comic strip. “Now we break uranium for the motherland…” He raised his eyebrow inquisitively as he read the headline out loud, but then shrugged and continued to read.

The comic was about a Russian bear called “Dohva”, and the comic strip followed Dohva’s work of enriching uranium, only to accidentally contract radiation poisoning. The little mishap was followed with instructions on how to apply rad-away in time to save Dohva, and Luka scoffed at the image of the large bear lying on the ground with crossed-out eyes, and green waves rising up from its dark coat of fur. He guessed they were meant to represent radiation, but he thought they looked more like stink lines.

“This is pretty stupid…” Luka finally said. “They’re downplaying the risk for mutations, and also conveniently overlooking the fact that slapping on a rad-away injection doesn’t always do the trick.” He shook his head, and felt an amused smile force the corners of his mouth upwards. “Poor Dohva…”

“Meh. You should have seen the bear they sent out in space.” Pravda grunted. “That wasn’t in a comic strip by the way, it actually happened. This character is named after her.”

“Well at any rate,” the Narrator interjected, “you seem to understand what you’re reading. And you translate it just fine.”

Pravda nodded along, as did Luka. “So, was this the test you wanted to do?”

The Narrator shook his head. “Nono… I need to see if you are fit to work with me. I have been looking long and hard for a protagonist to my next story, but if you are going to be the one…” He paused and allowed himself a wry smirk. “…you have to show me an acceptable character sheet.” Pravda groaned, and Luka only blinked stupidly at him, so he continued. “See, I need to know that can survive long enough to make our endeavour worthwhile.”

Luka squirmed hesitantly. “…is this some kind of test?”

“Not really,” Pravda remarked. “We do this to everyone. Even the informants.”

The Narrator nodded in agreement and pointed over to another machine standing along the wall. Luka read the sign above it: _Vit-o-matic Vigor Tester_.

“Well then!” the Narrator exclaimed and picked up his pencil and notepad. “Come with me!” He led Luka over to the machine, and pointed to two hand-marks on the top of it. “Place your hands here.”

Luka did as instructed, catching himself with feeling a mild excitement as he anticipated what was coming next. The Narrator pressed a red button on the machine, and Luka felt a charge of electricity course through the palms of his hands. A screen lit up on the Vigor Tester, and he heard a crackling sound from a voicebox underneath it.

_“Strength!”_ the Vigor Tester blared out from its loudspeaker, and the word also showed up in green letters on the screen. Luka felt the surge of electricity increase in his palms, making his fingers twitch painfully. _“Five!”_ the Vigor Tester finally proclaimed, and the electrical surge faded. _“Not quite strong as Industrious Worker, but at least you don’t punch like an old lady!”_

“Is this thing going to give a commentary on my results?” Luka asked warily.

The Narrator shrugged. “Actually, it’s never done that before…”

_“Perception!”_ the Vigor Tester continued, and Luka felt a lighter, more tingling surge of electricity course through his fingers. _“Seven! Congratulations, Comrade! Have you considered a career as food taster for our Glorious Chairman?”_

“Look at that, suddenly I’ve got career options…” Luka remarked, dryly.

_“Endurance!”_ A massive jolt of electricity shot through Luka’s hands, forcing him to withdraw them.

“Hey!”

_“Six! Descent, but you would still die on your march to the Gulags, Comrade… Stay in the good grace of the people!”_

“Well…” the Narrator mumbled as he scribbled the results down. “Fair numbers so far, I suppose…”

_“Charisma!”_ There was a long pause. _“…Four! You look like my aunt Olga, but don’t worry Comrade… that’s why we have vodka!”_

Pravda laughed a little louder than would have been proper. “Four? Really, that high?” He gave Luka a searching look. “Fine, I guess that means you have the charisma of a particularly charming ghoul. Congratulations, how does it feel?”

“Shut up…”

_“Intelligence!”_

“Hah. Another four now and this is a _real_ upset…”

“I said shut up!”

_“Seven!”_ the Vigor Tester proclaimed, and Pravda made an overly careless shrug. _“New Soviet Man would be proud!”_

“Interesting combination so far,” the Narrator remarked, oblivious to the banter between Pravda and Luka. “And besides, a high intelligence score is always uplifting…”

_“Agility!”_ the Vigor Tester continued. _“Eight! You are quite nimble, Comrade… Such a shame you’re too ugly to apply those skills in bed!”_

Luka felt his face turn red as he heard Pravda laugh again. “I’m starting to like this machine!”

_“Luck!”_

There was a long pause.

_“…error. Patterns are too wild to compute, Comrade.”_  The word _Luck_ appeared on the screen, but the number that followed it only appeared as a blurred symbol.

“Is that… a one?” The Narrator squinted and peered closer at the screen. “And is there a zero after or not?”

“I think it looks like an eight,” Luka commented.

Pravda snorted. “More like a three…”

The Narrator tapped the pencil against his chin. “Well, this certainly complicates matters…”

“Not really,” Pravda muttered. “Not if you consider what he’s been through lately. It _has_ to be a low number.”

“Really?” The Narrator looked up, visibly intrigued. He placed the pencil back to his notepad. “Do elaborate.”

“Well… let’s see if we can recap just his last week or so…” Pravda turned to Luka. “You ran into a bunch of rad-crazed cannibals and got shot in the leg… you didn’t so much get ‘rescued’ from them as you got captured by a band of ghouls with rifles instead. And now you’re stuck down here with this guy…” He gestured to the Narrator. “…rather than up in Raion where we could have planned a half-descent future for you.”

The Narrator shrugged a little, and interrupted Luka just as he was about to speak: “Yes yes… I’m aware. To be honest, we will have to spiff all of that up at some point; your story’s too linear right now…” He frowned. “It’s not how I would have written it.”

Luka arched a brow. “Well I’m sorry if my life story isn’t up to par with your standards…”

“Don’t worry, it’s just that part.” The Narrator waved his hand dismissively. “But you are holding out on us, Luka. Pravda gave a nice summary, but I thought he meant to say more. After all, I suspect it’s not really in the events of the last few days that the _real_ story can found.” He gave Luka a meaningful look. “Isn’t that right?”

Luka shifted uncomfortably, and winced as he pressed down too much weight on his bad leg. “I… don’t know what you’re talking about…”

“Ahh, but the antagonist!” the Narrator exclaimed as if it was the most natural thing in the world. “The person who chased you all the way out here!”

Luka felt a knot form in his stomach as he remembered. His face turned dark, and he looked away. “I came out here alone,” he said, very unconvincingly.

“Come now, we’re not stupid. The fact that you pretend I’m wrong just tells me the truth is all the more juicy.”

“Like I said, I don’t-“

“Actually, I had a word with that ‘Brick’ fellow while you were passed out,” the Narrator interrupted. “He and his group _found_ you wounded.” The ghoul leaned forward and smirked triumphantly. “And I don’t think you shot yourself… So, it must have been someone else.”

“Right…” Luka somehow managed to snarl through his gritted teeth. “Well, that’s none of your business.”

The Narrator shook his head. “Oh but it is! If you don’t tell me, I can’t write your story!”

“Then I’ll just go with Pravda,” Luka said very matter-of-factly. “I suppose I’ll look into that ‘half-descent future’ he was talking about.”

“Really!” The Narrator blinked. “You’re going to work for Calvert? That black sheep of a man?”

Luka saw Pravda’s expression turn grim, and the ghoul spoke, rancorously: “Mister Calvert was blamed unfairly. You know this just as well as I do, so what’s with the name-calling?” He tilted his head forward to give the Narrator a pointed look. “Sore loser?”

The pieces of another frown began to form on the Narrator’s face, but dissipated and gave way for an ominously calm expression. “Not at all,” he finally said. “This isn’t over.”

“Is too. He decided.” Pravda reached out and grabbed Luka’s arm, and dragged him along. “Come on, we’ve got some preparations to do, but I’m not staying a moment longer in this shithole than I have to.”

Luka allowed himself to be dragged along. He glanced over his shoulder however, finding the Narrator to stand calmly in place. As they exited the room, he could hear the Narrator call out after them: “Sooner or later I will know! Mark my words, Corporal Jasienski… I always find out!”

 

***********************************

 

Luka stuck his fork back into the can of pre-war beans. He casually pondered over what kind of preservatives must be involved in keeping the food edible for so long, but he knew better than to be picky. Besides, having some food in his belly felt extremely good, especially as he was still forced to sit around and wait for his gear to be repaired.

“So…” Luka leaned slightly over the table and helped himself to another can. “How come the humans I’ve seen out here understands English, but most ghouls don’t? I mean, given your longevity… I’m surprised so few seem to have picked it up.”

“Different conditions,” Pravda answered. “I guess when the nations out in the Borderlands fell, people there had the same thought as the surviving Soviets. English was a universal language back then, and it just made sense for everyone to revert to it, since interaction with other survivors would be essential for survival, regardless of where they were from.”

“Well yes,” Luka said through another mouthful. “But that doesn’t answer my question.”

Pravda sighed. “As I said, the same thing happened here. But as you’ll recall, ghouls are hunted and killed out here regardless of whether they are feral or not. With no opportunity for us to carry a dialogue with you smoothskins, we never really had the need to adapt in that way.”

Luka nodded in understanding, but before he had a chance to say anything else, Pravda raised his hand and continued: “Now, don’t try to act fancy out in the Tsardoms. Russian is still spoken there as well, but only by a select few.”

“Right, and I’ll draw enough attention as an outsider, I presume?”

“Yes… Russian is the ‘sacred language’ of their little Chaplaincy. They pretend like there is some magical force to the words they speak, so it would be suspicious if you revealed that you understood them.” Pravda shook his head. “The proper reaction is awe, try to remember that.”

Luka nodded again, then tilted his head in thought. “Was Russian always considered sacred like that? I mean… even before the war?”

Pravda let out a short, aggressive laugh. “Definitely not. The Soviets weren’t very fond of religion. Piety was considered a distinctly American trait, and the few churches that existed around here were forced to praise the government.”

Luka felt his curiosity rise up once more. “It sounds like the countries back then tried to polarize themselves towards one another.”

“Yes…” Pravda grumbled. “Care to guess why the bombs finally fell?”

“Right, well, this sounds like the opposite of how the post-war settlements have worked out. Piety aside, did the societies back then break away from one another in other ways too?”

Pravda shrugged. “The religion wasn’t a very central part of it to be honest, so yes. It was partisan hackery mostly. Communists squabbling with Capitalists; add an unreasonable amount of nationalism and xenophobia on both sides as well and there you go.”

“So the world was just divided into two, big camps?”

“Of course not,” Pravda said, a little more annoyed than usual. “There were four superpowers in total. As for the political leanings, the Soviets were actually far more open than the Chinese. Heck, they even allowed American companies within their borders… Poseidon Energy, for one.”

Luka briefly remembered the office back in Zhytomyr. “Is that why you were here at the start of the war? Were you representing the local Poseidon branch?” He felt his own face form into a glare. “Because I have a few things to say about the utility robots you people made use of…”

Pravda made a wheezing sound that Luka couldn’t quite place as a sigh or a laugh. “No. I was here with Mister Calvert.”

“Ahh, so he’s American as well?” Luka relaxed and took another mouthful of food, noting that Pravda was nodding in response.

“He was an ambassador back then. I was his secretary.”

Luka blinked. “So your two countries had ties like that? What about the… what did you call them… the political leanings?”

“As I said, the Soviets were more open. They were just acting tough. But also, Mister Calvert wasn’t exactly shaped by the regular, American blueprint. Sure, he came from a well-known Conservative family, but he was considered more of a liberal, so the Soviets had an easier time accepting him…”

“I see… And you were a ‘liberal’ as well I take it?”

Pravda glared harshly. “I said he was _considered_ a liberal. But neither of us actually were. _Any_ ideology is just an excuse that people use so they don’t have to think for themselves, and both Mister Calvert and I understood that.”

“So you two alone in the whole world had it figured out,” Luka remarked, partly out of curiosity, partly out of amusement.

“It’s nice to think that life allows for a predetermined set of guidelines, Luka, but that’s just not the case. It only makes your thinking linear… you stagnate, and you’ll be unable to adapt to new challenges.”

“Yeah…” Luka muttered. “I guess the lack of adaptability lead to everything else in the end…”

“Pretty much,” Pravda agreed. “But, speaking of adapting, by the sounds of things back in Seventeen, it sounded like you’ve pretty much agreed to work for us?”

“So long as this ‘Mister Calvert’ doesn’t go pry into things that doesn’t concern him.” Luka shrugged. “Either way, I think I’ll have to find a new life for myself out here, and if we can find some mutual benefit in one another, then great… Because I won’t be heading back west.”

“I guessed as much,” Pravda said. “Well then, once Mister Calvert has made things clear to you, what sort of life do you think you’ll want for yourself?” He gave Luka a long look. “Think you’ll enlist in the army of some Tsardom?”

“No,” Luka shook his head briskly. “I’ve had enough of that lifestyle…”

“I see. Then you’ll be more inclined towards a low-profile life? Think you’ll settle down?”

“If it’s true what they say about civilization out here, then maybe I’ll see if I can get a more quiet job, yes.”

“Family, then? Plan on finding a lovey-dovey lady friend and do the whole ‘happy ever after?’”

Luka scoffed. “That charisma score aside, you forget another problem. We still fight to survive, every day, and the truth of the matter is… there’s no romance in the wastelands.”

“Now that is a platitude if ever I heard one,” Pravda said, dryly. “Next you’ll be telling me that ‘the world is a dangerous place.’”

“Well it’s true,” Luka said defensively.

“I would imagine you’d think so. You say it with a bitterness that I didn’t expect from you.” At that, Luka gave him an annoyed look, but Pravda waved his hand and continued: “Oh don’t worry, I’m not going to tell you otherwise. What do you think of me, really?”

“Right.” Luka frowned and pushed his can away over the table. “I’m finished with this. We should get going.”

Pravda looked curious for a moment, but then shrugged. “Fine.”

The two men rose from the table, and Pravda lead the way out of the room. They exited the small apartment complex, and as they stepped out into the streets of Kiev, Pravda cautioned: “Again, I don’t think there should be any ferals around, but be careful…”

“…only Raion was ever fully combed clean of them,” Luka filled in. I know, you’ve repeated that three times since we left Seventeen.

They continued down the street in silence, the dusk of the setting sun casting long and dancing shadows over the ruins that made Luka slightly uncomfortable. Instinct told him to return back to shelter inside a building, but he forced himself to keep up with Pravda’s pace towards the nearby crossing.

Pravda’s motorcycle stood parked there, and the same ghoulish woman that had been present at the cannibal shack stood guard.

“Commander.” She gave Pravda a salute, which went unanswered. But more importantly, Luka noted that he could understand her this time. He smiled broadly, until he realized he must have been sending off some rather awkward signals, considering how the woman glared back at him.

“Hey Klara,” Pravda said. “Did Luka’s gear arrive yet?”

The woman nodded and pointed to the guns and bag in the back of the side car. “One loaded Beretta, repaired loading mechanism. One hunting rifle. One bag filled with assorted necessities, and of course… two stimpacks and some Rad-X, as compensation.”

Luka raised an eyebrow. “…compensation? For what?”

Klara glanced uncomfortably to Pravda, who answered: “We found a Rad-away amongst your belongings. They are strictly banned in the Oblast, so we had to get rid of it.”

“Who said you could go through my belongings in the first place?” Luka asked, flustered.

“Your backpack was soaked in blood,” Klara answered. “We had to put your items into a new one.”

“My fault, sorry about that,” Pravda said in an insincere tone of voice.

Luka sighed and rubbed his temples. “Right, well, at least you got me some Rad-X instead… almost as good. But why is that allowed, and not Rad-away?”

“Because of what you humans do with it!” Klara exclaimed, suddenly angry. Luka looked at her in confusion.

“Rad-away is used by the Tsar’s men to coat their bullets and swords,” Pravda filled in. “For when they go out ghoul-hunting. Our bodies don’t react well to it, so even minor wounds can become fatal… I’ve seen it lead to some pretty gruesome deaths.”

Luka slowly nodded. “You realize I never would have used it like that, right?”

“You could have bartered it away for supplies, not knowing better. Or you could have had it stolen from you. Rad-away is one thing we don’t want to provide the Tsardoms with.”

“Fair enough,” Luka finally said. “And the Rad-X aside, two stimpacks alone is more than a fair trade. You have no idea what those are worth, where I come from.”

“I suppose I don’t,” Pravda said. “But, anyway, you’ve got your things. Are you ready to leave?”

Luka nodded again, and Pravda trudged over to the motorcycle. Just as Luka was about to follow, he noticed a small source of light, standing on top of a garbage bin next to Klara’s guard post. He recognized the make-up of the glass jar instantly, and the lone rad-pixie inside. A suspicion began to form in his mind.

“Hey! That’s not yours!” Klara gave Luka an incredulous glare as he snatched up the jar and checked the lid.

“Air holes,” Luka simply noted, tracing his finger over the openings in the lid.

“Well of course,” Klara answered, looking at Luka as if he was stupid. “Rad-pixies are no good when they’re dead.”

Luka felt relieved. The jar he’d found in Zhytomyr had been abandoned, and without air holes, so he thought it safe to assume that the ghouls hadn’t been involved in the burning of the library there. “Yeah. They make a pretty bad light-source then, don’t they?”

Klara blinked. “Light source? Why would we need them as a light source when we’ve got electricity?” She held her hands out for the jar, and, very confused, Luka let her take it. She screwed the lid off, and caught the rad-pixie in her hand.

“Then why do you keep them around?” Luka asked. “As decoration?”

“No. As food.” Klara allowed herself a grin as she noticed Luka’s horrified look. “They’re quite delicious, really.”

“You… you’re joking, right?” Luka eyed the ghoul’s closed hand, nervously. “…right?”

Klara laughed roughly, and took the hand to her mouth. She bit down on the rad-pixie’s fluffy body, and it let out a frightened, heart-wrenching shriek which was cut short as soon as she began to chew.

Luka felt sick, and stumbled back on pure reflex. Somewhere in his mind he heard Pravda honk the motorcycle horn and call out to him, but the image of the rad-pixie being ground up between Klara’s teeth had put him in a trance-like state, and the creature’s shriek still rang through his ears. If the dead rad-pixies in Zhytomyr had lead to his bad streak of luck with Rudek and the cannibals, he didn’t even want to think what this would mean.

“You look a little pale,” Klara said. “You alright?”

Luka slowly nodded, though he refused to meet the woman’s eyes. Shortly after, he could hear Pravda press his hand to the motorcycle horn again, and he froze up, finally realizing just how loud the sound really was. It echoed over the empty city for several seconds after Pravda had stopped, and moments later, Luka could hear distant, highly agitated snarls.

“You may want to sit down in the side car,” Klara pointed out. “Especially if you’re going to faint. The ferals don’t attack us, but they’ll be taking _you_ for picnic.”

Luka tried to say something back, but found that he couldn’t. He still felt sick, but he began to make his way over to the motorcycle. As he sat down in the side car, he could hear the ferals in the distance again. They had already come much closer, and cut around the street corner just as Pravda started the motorcycle engine and began to drive away.

The ferals set their gaze on Luka, and ran straight past Klara just as she had predicted, but the motorcycle quickly gained speed and increased the gap to the pursuers. As they hit the main road leading out of Kiev, Pravda turned to Luka and gave him a sinister grin.

“…oops?”

 

***********************************

 

The journey continued without interruption, and even as the last rays of the sun disappeared over the horizon, the motorcycle’s headlight was still bright enough to illuminate the highway before them.

Pravda had let Luka calm down, and then continued to make some idle conversation. They spoke back and forth for the first hour, but during the second hour things had settled into a comfortable silence.

Luka didn’t mind it, as it gave him time to think. Most of all he was trying to get a better grasp of Pravda. The ghoul kept putting on either a sarcastic, or disinterested front, which made it very difficult for Luka to gauge his level of sincerity.

“When you sounded that damned horn,” Luka finally said, breaking the silence, “were you at all worried that there might be ferals nearby?” He gave Pravda an accusing look. “Were you just blowing hot air with all that talk about being careful?”

Pravda looked back briefly from the corner of his eyes and remained silent for a long moment, as if actually pondering the question. “I guess that did send some mixed messages,” he finally said, carefully. “But you were dithering about. Think of it as operant conditioning if you must.”

Luka waved his hands in annoyance. “ _How_ was that operate conditioning?!?”

“If you like not being chased by ferals, then you don’t waste my time,” Pravda said casually. “What were you up to anyway, chatting up a ghoul lady?”

Luka huffed. “I was curious to check something out…”

“Well curiosity is only natural,” Pravda retorted, and continued without missing a beat: “But really, Luka? Is there something I should know?”

“No…” Luka sighed indignantly. “It was the pixie jar. I found one like it in the library in Zhytomyr, and had a hunch…”

“Let me guess, the library was wrecked.”

Luka’s gaze shot back to Pravda. “How the hell did you know _that_?”

“Well it’s not just in Zhytomyr… There’s been a great purge all over Rus’.”

“A… ‘purge?’” Luka blinked.

“Yes. Took well over a decade to carry out, at that. It was very thorough.”

Luka tried to process the information to no avail. “But… why?” He took a deep breath, then added: “And who?”

“The High Tsar, who else? If you ask me, I suspect it’s part of the power struggle with the lesser tsardoms.”

“What, he wants to keep any useful pre-war knowledge out of their hands?” Luka felt repulsed at the regressive thinking.

“Now that’s anyone’s guess…” Pravda muttered. “But we’ve watched the smoothskins and their power struggles over the past century. The current tsars were originally just powerful landowners you know… Then this one fellow owning land around Moscow thinks it’s a good idea to pick up a book, and so he ends up reading something about these ‘tsars’ of old. Very convenient, since back in the day, the tsars supposedly ranked somewhere in between the earth and the heavens; not quite divine, but they were definitely seen as something more than just ordinary humans.”

“That does sound rather convenient,” Luka admitted. “Then what happened?”

“Well what do you think? The first tsar laid claim to all of Rus’, basing his right to rule on a very selective collection of knowledge from the old world. He divided the lands and appointed vassals from the local landowners; it’s called a feudal system, not that I think he knew. But then another problem arose…”

Pravda made a short pause, but as Luka remained silent, he continued: “Nothing in the old books said there could only be _one_ tsar, so, soon the local vassals began to claim divine right as well, and poof – you’ve got one tsar in Moscow, one in Minsk, one in Kursk, and so on…”

“Yeah, that’s a pretty big flaw,” Luka said. “But how did that end in a bunch of recreational book-burnings?”

“Well the tsar in Moscow had to dig a little deeper in his history books. He found some snippets of scripture that he liked, and built the Chaplaincy around it. You’d be surprised how quick people are to embrace salvation-theology when living conditions are bad enough; the Chaplaincy spread its ‘dogma’ like a wildfire, and the other tsars didn’t have much choice but to begrudgingly accept things as they were… When the Chaplaincy proclaimed a ‘High Tsar’ in Moscow, and made him ‘Patriarch of the Faith’, then the others could only smile and nod, unless they fancied being overthrown.”

“Let me guess,” Luka muttered. “Then the High Tsar started removing all sources of pre-war knowledge, so nobody else could get the same idea to exploit it…”

Pravda shrugged. “That’s my theory at least… But it makes a hell of a lot more sense than any of the other speculations I’ve heard. It’s also consistent with the current war up in Karelia… The Chaplaincy is there to stomp out some book that’s being worshipped by the local tribes.”

Luka nodded thoughtfully. “It seems a good theory, but I would like it confirmed…”

“Then look into it once we send you on your way. Find the truth of the matter, and report your findings back to us.”

Luka was surprised to hear that he’d have such liberties, and was about to ask about it when a yellow light caught his eyes over the ridge in the distance. The motorcycle went over it, and revealed a massive city on the other side, bathed in a strong glow from the streetlights along its many roads. Large pieces of concrete and metal had been scavenged to build a massive wall that encompassed the entire city, and two guard towers stood erect by the rapidly approaching main gate.

No words escaped Luka’s lips, and he thought no words could even begin to describe the magnificent sight before him anyway; even in the blackness of the night, or perhaps moreso because of it, the city stood as a true beacon of civilization in the surrounding wasteland. He could only stare in awe as he began to realize what was going on; they had finally reached Raion.


End file.
